Preamble

The House met at half-past
Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

PRIVATE BILLS

Ordered,

That, in the case of the Cardiff Corporation Bill and the Essex River and South Essex Water Bill, returned by the House of Lords with Amendments, Standing Order 208 (Notice of Consideration of Lords Amendments) be suspended, and such Amendments be considered on Thursday 24th July.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

PRIVATE BILLS

Motion made, and Question proposed, That, in the case of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Bill, returned by the House of Lords with Amendments, Standing Order 208 (Notice of Consideration of Lords Amendments) be suspended, and such Amendments be considered on Thursday, 24th July.

Debate arising;

Objection being taken to further Proceeding, the debate stood adjourned.

WELLAND AND NENE (EMPINGHAM RESER VOIR) AND MID-NORTHAMPTONSHIRE WATER BILL

Ordered,
That so much of the Lords Message [21st July] as relates to the Welland and Nene (Empingham Reservoir) and Mid-Northamptonshire Water Bill be now considered.

So much of the Lords Message considered accordingly.

Ordered,

That the Promoters of the Welland and Nene (Empingham Reservoir) and Mid-

Northamptonshire Water Bill shall have leave to suspend proceedings thereon in order to proceed with that Bill in the next Session of Parliament, provided that the Agents for the Bill give notice to the Clerks in the Private Bill Office of their intention to suspend further proceedings not later than the day before the close of the present Session and that all fees due on the Bill up to that date be paid.

Ordered,

That on the third day on which the House sits in the next Session the Bill shall be presented to the House.

Ordered,

That there shall be deposited with the Bill a Declaration signed by the Agents for the Bill, stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill at the last stage of its proceedings in this House in the present Session.

Ordered,

That the Bill shall be laid upon the Table of the House by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office on the next meeting of the House after the day on which the Bill has been presented and, when so laid, shall be deemed to have been read the first, second and third time and shall be recorded in the Journal of this House as having been so read.

Ordered,

That no further fees shall be charged in respect of any proceedings on the Bill in respect of which fees have already been incurred during the present Session.

Ordered,

That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House.

To be communicated to the Lords.

CALDERDALE WATER BILL [Lords]

So much of the Lords Message [21st July] as relates to the Calderdale Water Bill [Lords] to be considered forthwith.

So much of the Lords Message considered accordingly.

Ordered,

That this House doth concur with the Lords in their Resolution.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

STANDING ORDERS (PRIVATE BUSINESS)

The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Sydney Irving): I beg to move,
That the several Amendments to Standing Orders relating to Private Business hereinafter stated in the Schedule be made.
These Amendments are largely consequential on changes in departmental responsibilities or are designed to ease formalities in the signing of certain documents. They do not in any way affect the rights of Members.

Question put and agreed to.

Amendments made:

SCHEDULE

Standing Order 31, line 6, after 'Trade', insert at the office of the Crown Estate Commissioners'.

Standing Order 34, line 3, leave out or to a work of any description on the foreshore'.

Standing Order 39, line 1, leave out 'a printed copy' and insert two printed copies of every Bill'

Standing Order 39, line 2, after 'deposited', insert 'at the Department of Health and Social Security and one printed copy shall be deposited'.

Standing Order 39, line 5, after 'Food', insert 'The Civil Service Department'.

Standing Order 39, line 6, leave out 'the Ministry of Health'.

Standing Order 39, line 7, leave out 'Ministry of Labour' and insert 'Department of Employment and Productivity'.

Sanding Order 39, line 10, leave out 'the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance'.

Standing Order 39, line 17, leave out paragraph (3).

Standing Order 45, line 31, leave out 'pier or works of any description on the foreshore' and insert 'or pier'.

Standing Order 75, line 4, after 'Examiners', insert 'and signed by those parties or their agents'.

Standing Order 75, line 8, after 'orders', insert 'or his agent'.

Standing Order 75, line 16, after 'orders', insert 'or his agent'.

Standing Order 76, line 10, after 'Examiners', insert and signed by him or his agent'.

Standing Order 76A, line 3, leave out 'by the agent who deposited the memorial' and insert 'his agent'.

Standing Order 76A, line 4, leave out 'signed by' and insert 'deposited by or on behalf of'.

Standing Order 76A, line 5, leave out 'person signing the memorial' and insert 'of those persons'.

Standing Order 158, line 19, at end insert 'or the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965'.

Standing Order 173, line 3, leave out 'by the agent who deposited the petition' and insert 'his agent'.

Standing Order 173, line 4, leave out 'signed by' and insert 'deposited by or on behalf of'.

Standing Order 173, line 5, leave out 'person signing the petition' and insert 'of those persons'.

Standing Order 214, line 22, after 'although', insert 'neither'.

Standing Order 214, line 24, leave out 'has not' and insert 'nor his agent has'.

Standing Order 224, line 21, after 'Examiners', insert 'and signed by those parties or their agents'.

Standing Order 241, line 4, after 'Chairman', insert 'and signed by him or his agent'.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Oral Answers to Questions — BOARD OF TRADE

Boneless Beef Imports

Sir R. Russell: asked the President of the Board of Trade if, following his discussions with the interests concerned, he will now abandon his proposal to reduce the customs duty on boned and boneless beef imported from foreign countries.

Mr. Biffen: asked the President of the Board of Trade what tariff changes he proposes in respect of imports of boned meat following the recommendations of the Northumberland Commission.

Mr. Oakes: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he has now completed his negotiations on the revision of the tariff on boneless beef; and if he will make a statement.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Anthony Crosland): After considering the views expressed by the home and overseas interests concerned, the Government have decided that the present 20 per cent. duty on boned or boneless beef and veal in fresh, chilled or frozen form should be reduced to 5 per cent. with effect from 1st October, 1969. I will review the new rate if necessary in the light of experience.

Sir R. Russell: Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that this reduction in duty will reduce by 15 per cent. the margin of preference afforded to Commonwealth countries and, therefore, damage their trade and possibly throw their whole trade into chaos? Will he not reconsider this matter from the point of view of Commonwealth producers?

Mr. Crosland: No, Sir. The hon. Gentleman is much too pessimistic. Commonwealth producers will gain from the ban on bone-in beef, and this decision will merely offset the gain that they would have had from that. If there were to be the disruption which the hon. Gentleman fears, this would constitute the kind of circumstances in which I would review the decision.

Mr. Biffen: In view of the overriding importance of health considerations in dealing with this subject, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that boned beef which will now be subject to a 5 per cent. tariff must be accompanied by the lymphatic glands which will enable the health inspection to be carried out also in this country.

Mr. Crosland: Yes, Sir; that is the case.

Mr. Oakes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his decision to reduce this duty will be widely welcomed by the housewife and the trade in this country? Why is he sticking to the percentage basis rather than a duty of so much according to weight?

Mr. Crosland: There are two reasons why we are sticking to an ad valorem duty rather than having a specific duty. One is that the great majority of our duties are ad valorem. The other, which is more important, is the fact that a specific duty can be eroded in value simply by a movement in prices. The general opinion is that ad valorem duties make much more sense.

Developing Countries (Generalised Preference System)

Sir R. Russell: asked the President of the Board of Trade what account he is taking of the existing system of Commonwealth preferences in his plans for implementing the scheme for a generalised system of preference for less developed countries approved by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development conference in New Delhi.

Mr. Crosland: It is, in the Government's view, basic to the proposed generalised preference arrangements that they should provide new benefits in third markets to compensate Commonwealth developing countries for the extent to which they would be obliged to share with the developing countries their existing preferential arrangements in our market.

Sir R. Russell: Can the Minister give an idea of what the compensation will be in respect of imports to this country from the existing Commonwealth countries?

Mr. Crosland: No, Sir. We have not yet advanced sufficiently far in the direction of a generalised preference scheme to say what kind of compensation would be required. The Government have, however, consistently made it clear that a scheme would not be acceptable to us unless the Commonwealth developing countries received new advantages in third markets to compensate them for anything they might lose by sharing preferences in the British market.

Dr. John Dunwoody: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the U.N.C.T.A.D. conference last year agreed on the establishment of a system of preferences which, among other things, would promote industrialisation in some of the less advanced countries? Will he, further, agree that the announcement that we are to switch from quotas to a tariff system for cotton imports takes us a step away from this objective?

Mr. Crosland: No, Sir, I do not think that it will do so. I agree with why my hon. Friend has described as being the purpose of the U.N.C.T.A.D. scheme but, as I pointed out in the House yesterday, I believe that a tariff solution on textiles could well do less harm to the developing countries than a continuation of the quota system. I do not, therefore, regard yesterday's decision as being in any way a blow to the developing countries.

Computer Air Conditioning Equipment (Grant)

Mr. Wiggin: asked the President of the Board of Trade why he will not in all circumstances pay grant under the Industrial Development Act, 1966, on the air conditioning equipment necessary for the functioning of a computer which itself qualifies for grant.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Edmund Dell): Because the Act provides for grant to be paid towards the cost of such equipment only if it is part of the expenditure incurred by the applicant in providing the computer.

Mr. Wiggin: Nevertheless, the fact remains that air-conditioning equipment which is necessary for the functioning of a computer does not qualify for grant, whereas other peripheral equipment, such as decollators, which is not necessary

does qualify. May I ask the Minister to look at this again

Mr. Dell: Air-conditioning equipment qualifies where it is provided for the owner of the computer and is regarded as part of the installation expenses. The difficulty in the case which I think the hon. Member has in mind concerns the position of a lessee, which is different in the way which has been explained to the firm with which I believe the hon. Member is concerned.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Is not that a very silly answer? Why should there be a difference in the assistance given by the Government to the installation of a computer if it is leased? Would not the Minister of State look at this again, particularly with regard to the fact that we had almost exactly the same arguments in relation to the peripheral equipment for computers, on which the Board of Trade recently made what was, to us, a very welcome announcement?

Mr. Dell: I am advised that we do not have legal power under the Act to pay for air-conditioning equipment in the case of lessees in instances such as this. I agree that there is an anomaly, but it arises from the willingness of the Government to help in those cases where they can—that is, where the computer is bought by the user and the air-conditioning equipment is provided as part of the installation expenses. The fact that we have tried to help has created the appearance of anomaly.

South Coast Rescue Service (Helicopters)

Mr. Costain: asked the President of the Board of Trade what plans he now has to provide a helicopter rescue service on the South Coast of England; and if he will make a statement.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. William Rodgers): There is a wide range of rescue services along the South Coast, including Service helicopters. We have no plans at present to provide a civil helicopter rescue service but we have constantly in mind the need to ensure that facilities are maintained at a high standard.

Mr. Costain: Is the Minister aware that I have a letter from the Ministry


of Defence dated 6th May saying that the responsibility is that of the Board of Trade? Now the Minister appears to be saying that the responsibility is that of the Ministry of Defence. How many people must be drowned before Government Departments sort out whose responsibility it is?

Mr. Rodgers: The responsibility is collectively that of the Government. There is no difference of emphasis or opinion here. The hon. Member and the House know about the withdrawal of the Royal Air Force helicopters from Manston. This has created problems. We are looking at them together and in so far as there is a danger of falling short we shall remedy this.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is already a very useful helicopter rescue service off the South Coast at Brighton? If it is not under his control, will he take it under his control and develop it? It is especially useful during the holiday season.

Mr. Rodgers: I am obliged to my hon. and learned Friend. He is quite right. There are Royal Air Force stations at Thorney Island, in Sussex, and also at Coltishall, in Norfolk. They provide a service, although, of course, this does not adequately cover that part of the coast previously covered from Manston.

Overseas Transactions (Credit)

Mr. Hall-Davis: asked the President of the Board of Trade what study he has made of the effect on the economy of the trend towards the granting of longer trade credit for overseas transactions; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Dell: The Chancellor of the Exchequer and my right hon. Friend keep this matter under constant review. In considering the length of credit we can offer for our exports, the need for a quick return to our reserves must be balanced by the need to maintain the competitive position of our exporters.

Mr. Hall-Davis: Has the Minister of State made an assessment of the effect on exports of any marginal variation in the rate of interest charged on special export lending to finance exports of ships and capital goods?

Mr. Dell: As a result of the competitive position, the proportion of exports which are on longer terms has increased. This is not as a result of any leadership which we have given in a credit race but is because it is necessitated by the competitive export position. The hon. Member will know about the O.E.C.D. understanding in respect of ships.

Mr. Dalyell: Does "constant review" imply that there has been recent discussion with the I.M.F. of the familiar link to help developing countries with credit?

Mr. Dell: No, Sir. The governing factor is the need to keep our exports competitive.

Sir K. Joseph: Do the Government continually compare the use of foreign exchange for long-term credit with the use of foreign exchange for overseas investment, which may produce income for this country rather quicker than long-term credit?

Mr. Dell: This is a balance of advantage which has to be kept under review, but we also have very much to take account of the need to press our exports forward, which requires the matching of other people's credit terms.

National Exhibition Centre

Mr. Hall-Davis: asked the President of the Board of Trade when he will announce his decision about the establishment of a National Exhibition Centre.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody): I cannot at this stage add to what my right hon. Friend told the House on 12th June,—[Vol. 784, c. 1747–9.]

Mr. Hall-Davis: Does the Parliamentary Secretary recognise that the provision of a national exhibition centre would provide an opportunity for an architectural and design concept of world significance? Will the Minister refrain from authorising a go-ahead until he is satisfied that the opportunity can be taken in a way which will support the reputation of British design and workmanship?

Mrs. Dunwoody: I think we are all in agreement that if we are to put up permanent buildings it is as well for


them to be of a very high standard architecturally, and I am certainly in agreement with the hon. Member about this. We must examine the scheme in greater detail before we decide on the design.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Will the Parliamentary Secretary accept that with all the difficulties, which we recognise, her reply is bound to be greeted with dismay by British industry? May we have an assurance that the Board of Trade is examining with great urgency the need for this national exhibition centre? Is it not rather sad that no progress has been made since the President of the Board of Trade made his speech in the debate last June?

Mrs. Dunwoody: The hon. Member is wrong. I did not say that there had been no progress. I said that there was nothing I could add at the present time. A private scheme from a private developer is being examined. It is very important that we should not go ahead with this decision until all the possibilities have been examined, because there are many aspects of this and many differing industries have an important state in what happens. We hope that something will be decided as soon as possible.

World Trade

Mr. Luard: asked the President of the Board of Trade what was Great Britain's share of world trade in 1967, the first half of 1968, the second half of 1968 and the first five months of 1969.

Mr. Crosland: The United Kingdom share of exports of manufactures from the main manufacturing countries was 12 per cent. in 1967, 11 per cent. in each of the first and second halves of 1968 and maintained at 11 per cent. in the first quarter of this year, the latest period for which adequate figures are available. Part of the reduction between 1967 and 1968 was due to the fall in United Kingdom export prices expressed in dollar terms.

Mr. Luard: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that these figures show that the increase in British exports over the last two years is, to a large extent, a reflection of the rapid increase in trade among the developed countries and that the continuing difficulties that we still have in the

balance of payments stem more from the failure of our exports to rise sufficiently than from the rise in imports, as some observers have suggested? Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the improvement in our export performance over the next year will be sufficient to remedy this situation and to bring the £300 million surplus which has been predicted?

Mr. Crosland: I entirely agree that, taking a broad view, the British balance of payments difficulty is fundamentally due to failure on the export side rather than failure on the import side, but I must point out to my hon. Friend that the last 18 months or so have been the first time in very many years when Britain has kept her share of world trade. That share fell in the 10 years before devaluation by about ½ per cent. a year. All the indications are that exports are on an encouragingly rising trend.

Car Sales

Mr. Luard: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the decline in motor-car production for the home market which in May was 20 per cent. below the figures for May, 1968, he will now relax hire-purchase restrictions on car sales.

Mr. Dudley Smith: asked the President of the Board of Trade, in view of the fact that the estimated sales by the motor industry on the home market this year is below a million vehicles for the first time since 1962, what steps he plans to take to help reverse this trend.

Mr. Howie: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the figures for motor-car production for the home market for May of this year which show a reduction on last year's figures, he will now reconsider the hire-purchase restrictions which are at present in operation.

Mr. Dell: No, Sir. Despite the losses of production earlier this year from strikes, total production of passenger cars for home and export during the first five months of 1969 was slightly greater than in the same period of 1968. I should add that there was one less week in 1968. It remains necessary to restrain home demand to make room for greater exports.

Mr. Luard: But is it not a fact that although, as my hon. Friend has said, total production was scarcely different from last year's production, on the home market it was 16 per cent. down on that in the corresponding period of last year, and would he not agree that this does create considerable difficulties for our motor manufacturers in being able to export at competitive prices because it raises their total overheads? Has he not received very stern representations from manufacturers for some easing of restrictions on the home market.

Mr. Dell: There have been representations, and I am, of course, aware of the difficulties this sort of policy causes, but, nevertheless, my hon. Friend will be aware that production of passenger cars for export in the first five months of this year were 12 per cent. more than in the first five months of last year, and it seems to me to be the right trend for a higher proportion of motor car manufactures to be exported.

Mr. Howie: Is my hon. Friend aware that many of us on this side of the House believe that this important industry leans rather unduly heavily on this particular argument, but that, nevertheless, it is of some importance, and would he assure us that he will bend his best efforts towards trying to get a return to the record car production not of 1968 but of a year or two ago?

Mr. Dell: I understand the importance of the argument. I understand the difficulties this causes, but, as my hon. Friend says, the main thing here is to achieve exports, and I hope that record production will be achieved as a result of record sales for export.

Imports and Exports

Mr. Blaker: asked the President of the Board of Trade what income elasticity of demand his Department estimates now attaches to United Kingdom imports and United Kingdom exports, respectively.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware of the low income elasticity of demand for United Kingdom exports relative to the elasticity of demand for United Kingdom imports; what steps he is tak-

ing to remove this cause of Great Britain's present slow rate of growth; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Alison: asked the President of the Board of Trade what estimate he has made of changes in the present respective income elasticities of demand for United Kingdom imports and United Kingdom exports; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Dell: Reliable estimates of income elasticities of demand are matters of difficult and uncertain economic analysis. The trend in our exports in relation to world demand has been greatly strengthened by devaluation, the full effects of which have yet to work through in increased deliveries. Over the past year our exports have risen significantly faster than imports, the volume of which has changed little despite a rise in economic activity.

Mr. Blaker: Is the Minister aware that in an article recently published in the Review of Economics and Statistics it is argued that our export markets are ones in which an increase in local income generates a relatively small increase in demand for British exports and that in this respect we are in an unfavourable position compared with other industrial countries. Is it not urgent that the Government should produce their own figures and their own estimates to show whether they agree or not with that argument?

Mr. Dell: As the hon. Gentleman knows, there has been some transfer of our exports to more rapidly growing economies, but that, in any case, since this study was done the whole situation has been greatly changed by devaluation. I would have thought that in the existing circumstances what is most important are the supply conditions and supply elasticities rather than income elasticities.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Is it not a fact that, even granted that demand has to some extent overtaken the actual figures which Professor Houthakker quoted in his article, the Board of Trade simply does not accept the main thesis, that the ratio of income elasticity to demand for imports and exports in this country is substantially out of line with that of our major competitors?

Mr. Dell: We have examined these figures. We note that these two authors


themselves have actually suggested two alternative and different elasticities. Many economists disagree with the analysis and the calculations. It does not seem to me that one can really base a judgment on the future economy on these calculations. The real question is how exports and imports are moving at the moment.

Mr. Alison: Is not the Minister dodging the issue by that answer? Particularly talking about imports, are we not really talking about income elasticity and demand for imports? With incomes practically unchanged for 18 months or two years in real terms because of the Government squeeze we do not know how elasticity has moved.

Mr. Dell: Surely what the hon. Gentleman is concerned about, as are other hon. Members in this House, is how the visible balance of trade is moving. We do know that, following devaluation, the volume of imports has become very stable and that the volume of exports is rising. That is a fact which differs from the implications of that particular article. Surely it is the facts that we ought to go for, rather than some theoretical calculation which is challenged by many experts.

Mr. Barnett: In view of the errors which have currently appeared, is my hon. Friend satisfied that he is now able to obtain accurate figures in so far as exporters are fully recording their exports? Is he satisfied about the compensating error that there must be in view of the figure of the balance item? Would he consider that this is accounted for by evasion of exchange control, and is he not aware that it is a fact that for most people it is not too difficult to obtain whatever funds they like abroad for a certain price?

Mr. Dell: Well, as my hon. Friend knows, since the discovery of the under-recording error a 100 per cent. check is being introduced. It is impossible to say yet that this has eliminated under-recording, and we do not expect to till the end of the year. If my hon. Friend will draw my attention to the facts on which the last part of his question was based I will, of course, examine them.

Sir K. Joseph: Is not the Minister of Sate being very detached? The Board of Trade Journal itself published an

analysis only a few months ago which showed that for every 1 per cent. of growth in our gross national product, imports rise in value by 1⅔ per cent., which is the essence of Professor Houthakker's thesis. Is he throwing overboard the Board of Trade Journal's analysis? What will happen to the balance of payments in this country when one Government, or another, allow growth once again?

Mr. Dell: I do not see that that follows from the article from which the right hon. Gentleman has quoted. It is a well known fact that in an industrialised society imports grow faster than the national income. This is part of the process of the distribution of trade, which increases resources available. That does not mean that there is a difference in income elasticity affecting imports and exports in the way those two authors suggest for all purposes. I suggest that it is better to go for the facts of what is happening to our exports and imports at the moment.

Overseas Marketing Corporation

Mr. Blaker: asked the President of the Board of Trade how much of the loan capital made available to the Overseas Marketing Corporation has been drawn upon; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Stainton: asked the President of the Board of Trade in what countries the Overseas Marketing Corporation has already set up marketing offices; and to which countries it proposes to extend its operations.

Mr. Stainton: asked the President of the Board of Trade in how many cases the Overseas Marketing Corporation has so far been successful in bringing together British manufacturers and foreign buyers; and what size of British firms have been involved.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: So far, the Overseas Marketing Corporation has drawn on £225,000 of the loan capital made available to it. The corporation has set up marketing offices in France, Germany and Italy; it has an interest in a distributorship in Sweden and has representatives active in Eastern Europe. The question of representation in other countries is a matter for commercial judgment


by the corporation, but it is at present consolidating its position in Europe. The corporation is, of course, concentrating on manufacturers of goods for which export opportunities exist who lack marketing resources and expertise.

Mr. Blaker: How do these developments compare with the rate of progress which was anticipated when the corporation was set up 20 months ago?

Mrs. Dunwoody: It is difficult to make theoretical comparisons. The corporation has been very active in setting up an efficient and workmanlike set of distributorships throughout Europe, and, as far as we can see, they are beginning to work extremely well.

Mr. Stainton: May I put to the Parliamentary Secretary a question on an article which appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 11th June, the author of which expresses deep concern at not being able to get a release or report from the corporation? I appreciate that the corporation is autonomous, but does not the Parliamentary Secretary regard this as a deplorable state of affairs?

Mrs. Dunwoody: We must accept that if the unit was set up as a commercial unit, which it was, it does publish certain figures. If the hon. Gentleman has a particular instance which he would like us to investigate, we will certainly do so.

Young Management (European Marketing)

Mr. Maddan: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will initiate a programme to encourage young management to acquire a greater understanding of European marketing problems as a means of stimulating the British export effort.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I endorse the need to encourage young management to acquire a greater understanding of European marketing problems, but I do not think that, given the marketing courses already available, a specific initiative is required by the Board of Trade.

Mr. Madden: Is not the Parliamentary Secretary aware that not a great deal must have been done in the way she suggests? Should not the British National Export Council take an initiative to stimulate the provision of such courses?

Mrs. Dunwoody: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that the National Marketing Council was assisted by the Board of Trade in 1966 and 1967 as a pump-priming operation, but it now runs very successful courses without any financial assistance from us.

Mr. Roebuck: Would it not be far better if some companies spent more money on educating management instead of putting shareholders' money into the coffers of the Conservative Party?

Mrs. Dunwoody: I am afraid that some companies do waste their money from time to time—and get a very poor return. The whole question of management is, in the final analysis, one for industry, and one hopes that industry will energetically undertake the job of training.

Monopolies Commission

Dr. Winstanley: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will give a general direction to the Monopolies Commission to hear oral evidence before making a report on the professions.

Sir K. Joseph: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will give a general direction to the Monopolies Commission that, in considering the practices of the professions, it shall hear oral evidence from the professional bodies concerned.

Sir C. Black: asked the President of the Board of Trade what representations from what professions he has received concerning the reference to the Monopolies Commission of the practices of the professions; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. Dell: My right hon. Friend has received representations from a number of professional bodies about the Commission's conduct of this inquiry, and, in particular, about its decision not to hear oral evidence. He has replied that he cannot intervene. His power to give general directions to the commission does not extend to its conduct of general inquiries into the effect on the public interest of a specified class of practice.

Dr. Winstanley: Is not it important that when the commission comes to report on these professions the professions should feel that the report has been


made in the fullest possible knowledge of all the facts? Is not it therefore regrettable that the commission should now appear to be discriminating against the professions by departing from its usual practice of hearing oral evidence?

Mr. Dell: As I said in my Answer, my right hon. Friend cannot intervene in the way the commission conducts this inquiry, although the method of inquiry will be stated in the report. The Board of Trade has no power to act on the report of an inquiry conducted under this Section of the Act. That power can be taken only by legislation, and, depending upon the nature of the report, further investigation might be necessary before such action was taken.

Sir K. Joseph: Is not it a reflection on the President of the Board of Trade for making a reference on such an enormous scale that the Monopolies Commission has not been able to carry out the normal principles of natural justice of any investigatory procedure, and has been unable to tell the bodies being investigated what is the prima facie case against them, if any, and give them an opportunity to comment on it? Does not this mean, particularly in the light of the Minister of State's answer, that it is all a great waste of time?

Mr. Dell: In defence of my right hon. Friend I should say at once that this reference was made by his predecessor; but I do not accept what the right hon. Gentleman has said. We must see the report and how the commission tackles it before coming to a conclusion that natural justice has in any way been breached. I am aware of the anxieties of the professions in this respect, but they have not seen the report. I am sure that the commission is well aware of the requirements of natural justice.

Sir C. Black: Does not the hon. Gentleman think, when six leading professional bodies, including the General Council of the Bar, have made representations, that natural justice has not been done, that this calls for some attention on the part of his right hon. Friend?

Mr. Dell: My right hon. Friend has no power to intervene. I think that the hon. Gentleman should see the report before jumping to this conclusion. It will not be possible to act on the report in

view of the section of the Act under which this general type of inquiry is made. Various things may have to be done before action is appropriate—possibly further inquiries, possibly consultation with the professions.

Mr. Whitaker: While I recognise the independence of the commission, does my hon. Friend feel that hon. Members of this House should take the same attitude to restrictive practices in the professions as they do to those of the trade unions? Can he say when the commission will report?

Mr. Dell: I agree with the first part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question. I do not know when the commission will report on this subject.

Mr. Doughty: The hon. Gentleman says that we should wait for the report before saying anything. Does not he realise that if the inquiry has been made in the manner in which apparently it is being made, the report when it is published will command little respect? Will he therefore, even if he has no power of direction, indicate the views of the Members of this House about the way in which the inquiry is being conducted?

Mr. Dell: I am sure that the views of hon. Members will be noted, just as the Monopolies Commission no doubt noted the representations made to it by the professions. Whether the report will command little respect is something that we cannot tell until we see the report. I am merely suggesting to the House that it might be advisable to wait for the report.

Investment Grants

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will now publish the results of the departmental study on the effectiveness of the investment grants system.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether the study being made by his Department of the effectiveness of investment grants is completed; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. David Howell: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will now publish the conclusions of the


studies being undertaken by his Department on present investment incentives.

Mr. Dell: I hope the study will be completed by the summer of next year. I will consider the question of publication at the time.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Is that not a very long time to have to wait? May not the delay be due to the fact that this policy is quite clearly embarrassing the Government because we are spending enormous amounts of public money with very little result? Would the Minister consider reverting to a system of investment allowances which has the blessing of the fact that it is consistent with our entry into the E.E.C., whereas the investment grant system is clearly in flagrant contradiction of its rules?

Mr. Dell: On the contrary, I believe that the investment grant system has raised the level of investment in manufacturing industry. Indeed, some evidence of this is shown in the figures for the fourth quarter of 1968.
As for reverting to investment allowances, the previous Government made no investigation at all of the effectiveness of investment allowances. Such investigations as were made showed that most investors were ignorant of their existence and were not influenced by them. It would therefore appear to me to be absurd to revert to such a system.

Mr. Baker: Did the Minister note what the President of the Board of Trade said yesterday about the cotton textile industry, in which he declined to extend extra investment grants in relation to cotton textile machinery, but allowed it a higher rate of depreciation? Why does he not extend this excellent example to the rest of British industry?

Mr. Dell: My right hon. Friend yesterday did not extend depreciation to the textile industry. He said that there would be consultation on that point. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I recommend hon. Gentlemen to read my right hon. Friend's statement, which referred to consultations between the industry and the Inland Revenue. As for the other point, the reason why additional investment grants could not be extended to the textile industry was that this claim could equally have been made by other industries. We reserve the premium rate

of investment grant to the development areas where it appears to have the effect of raising the amount of investment in the development areas by a substantial degree.

Mr. Howell: Whatever the President of the Board of Trade said yesterday, will the Minister and his right hon. Friend take good care not to be seduced by any clamour for additions to or modifications of the investment grant system? Will he recognise that the best thing he could do would be to scrap the lot and cut taxation accordingly?

Mr. Dell: I do not agree with that proposition. I also note that the previous Government had a system of investment allowances which was ineffective and which, presumably, had some effect on the level of taxation. Hon. Gentlemen opposite must make up their minds whether or not they want investment incentives. The difference between this system of investment incentives and its predecessor is that this one is effective.

Mr. Sheldon: Is my hon. Friend aware that a very large proportion of investment grants is paid out to oil and chemical companies on the equipment they use which they would probably put in in any event, companies which employ very few people for each £ of investment grant spent? Could not investment grants discriminate more in favour of those who provide more jobs, and particularly those who set up manufacturing plant and machinery?

Mr. Dell: I am aware that the investment grant system is highly capital-intensive, possibly less so than its predecessor. Where I do not agree with my hon. Friend is on his suggestion that we should not give substantial encouragement to investment in highly capital-intensive industries, many of which provide a significant proportion of our exports.

Local Employment Act (Licensed Premises)

Mr. Dempsey: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many applications have been received for financial assistance under the Local Employment Act from applicants whose business involves the sale of intoxicating liquor; and what was the total amount of grant given.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: These figures are not readily available. However, my hon. Friend will be aware that following the statement of my right hon. Friend on 4th July, 1968, most service industry projects are no longer eligible for assistance under the Local Employment Acts.—[Vol. 767, c. 269–70.]

Mr. Dempsey: But is it not a great pity that these figures are not available? Many of these licensed premises, which do not provide residential accommodation, were constructed by private monopoly brewers who have been subsidised by the British taxpayer. The effect of S.E.T does not appear to have made much difference in this respect.

Mrs. Dunwoody: I am sure that that point ought to be borne in mind. My own impression is that there has not been a great deal of Government money poured into licensed premises. Some of my hon. Friends might think that that is a shame.

Inertia Selling

Mr. Whitaker: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will now announce the conclusion of his review of the control of inertia selling.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: We are continuing to explore possible remedies for this problem.

Mr. Whitaker: Is my hon. Friend aware that there are a number of complaints about this irritating practice centred on very few firms, three in particular, which shows that it is not just a matter of errors being made? Is she further aware that New York has an admirable and simple law to stop this undesirable practice and will she give an assurance that she will not be inert about the matter?

Mrs. Dunwoody: We are actively considering the New York law to see whether this will answer some of the difficulties which arise in the case of inertia selling. I have asked the hon. Member if he has any suggestions to make to my Department on which we could act.

Mr. Carter-Jones: Would my hon. Friend not agree that it would be very simple to solve this by saying that if someone sends goods through the post

which the recipient does not need, then he assumes that they are his?

Mrs. Dunwoody: This is certainly one method which could be used, and we are examining the legislation that New York State has brought in to see whether it would cover the problem. There are difficulties. If someone got his next door neighbour's groceries by mistake, I do not think the neighbour would be very happy.

Commonwealth Preferences

Mr. Whitaker: asked the President of the Board of Trade which non-Commonwealth countries at present receive Commonwealth preference trading benefits.

Mr. Crosland: The non-Commonwealth countries included in the Commonwealth preference area are Burma, the Republic of South Africa, Western Samoa, and the Republic of Ireland.

Mr. Whitaker: In view of the considerable financial damage that the Republic of South Africa has done, and continues to do, to this country by torpedoeing the Rhodesian sanctions policy, why on earth should we continue giving Commonwealth preferences to it?

Mr. Crosland: The decision to maintain the trade agreement with South Africa was made when South Africa left the Commonwealth. It has been reiterated by myself and many other Ministers that the Government have no intention of altering the current trade agreement with South Africa.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is not trade with South Africa of the very greatest economic importance to this country and would it not be singularly foolish to damage that trade?

Mr. Crosland: I have answered this and similar questions many times in the House and have constantly said that we have two obligations here. The first is to adhere rigidly to the arms ban laid down by the United Nations and the second is, within that policy, to encourage normal civilian trade.

s.s. "Queen Elizabeth I"

Mr. Longden: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a further statement on the plans Cunard


has for the disposal and future use of s.s. "Queen Elizabeth I".

Mr. William Rodgers: Cunard has recently announced the sale of the ship to United States interests for nearly £3·6 million. The purchasers have said that the ship is to be converted to a resort and convention centre in Florida.

Mr. Longden: Did the hon. Gentleman ascertain why Cunard would not give an option to inspect to prospective purchasers, including the Anglo-Australian consortium, whose purchase of the ship would have provided much employment for British seamen and would have assisted the balance of payments and emigration to Australia?

Mr. Rodgers: I am not aware that Cunard behaved in that way, nor why it did, if it did. This was a commercial transaction, and Cunard accepted the best price it could get.

Trade Descriptions Act (Scottish Prosecutions)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many prosecutions there have been to date in Scotland under the Trade Descriptions Act.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: By 18th July we had been notified of 18 cases in which it was intended to prosecute in Scotland, but as far as I am aware only two of these cases have yet been heard.

Mr. Hamilton: Is my hon. Friend aware that that reply is very disappointing? Can she say what increased publicity is being undertaken by the Board of Trade to give consumers information about their rights under this legislation and how much it is costing?

Mrs. Dunwoody: As my hon. Friend knows, the Board of Trade has been very active in publicising this legislation. We have printed a great many leaflets, which have been available free of charge to consumers and consumer associations from local authorities. We are doing everything we can to publicise the existence of this protection for the shopper.

Mr. Woodburn: Is my hon. Friend aware that this legislation has brought a good deal of help to the housewife through getting rid of much misleading

description, especially since her excellent broadcast?

Mrs. Dunwoody: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. In England there have been 546 intended prosecutions up to the same date. Whether this simply proves that in Scotland the ladies are tougher shoppers I would not like to say.

Mr. Darling: Is it not a fact that the Trade Descriptions Act is working extremely well and the very few prosecutions are evidence of this and of the fact that the weights and measures inspectors throughout the country have done a very good job of work, persuading traders not to commit offences rather than prosecuting them for those offences?

Mrs. Dunwoody: I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend. The weights and measures authorities have done a magnificent job on this legislation. They have been encouraged to discuss the problems of misdescription with the traders before undertaking prosecutions. This is the right way.

Mr. Clark Hutchison: Do not the figures show that Scottish traders are pretty honest?

Mrs. Dunwoody: It is very invidious to make comparisons between Scotland and the rest of Great Britain, but I am sure that Scottish shopkeepers will have noted the hon. Gentleman's remarks.

Nuclear Power Station (Greece)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the President of the Board of Trade what further progress has been made in the negotiations with Greece on the sale of a nuclear power station.

Mr. Crosland: Negotiations are continuing between the various interests concerned, and I hope that they will be concluded successfully in the course of this year.

Mr. Hamilton: Can my right hon. Friend answer two questions? First, is the agreement inevitably tied up with the purchase of Greek tobacco by the United Kingdom, and, second, will he make it clear that, whether this agreement goes through or not, Her Majesty's Government in no way condone the bestial activities and practices of the military régime?

Mr. Crosland: On the first point, the two sets of negotiations are not inevitably linked, but they are certainly very closely linked. On the second part of the question, I make it clear again, as I have made it clear many times before, that the fact that we encourage trade with Greece does not in any way alter the very strong feelings which I and my colleagues have about the nature of the Greek Government.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Would my right hon. Friend make it clear that a Greek general would be persona non grata if he came as an ambassador to this country and that this would not be affected by the nuclear agreement?

Mr. Doughty: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think it rather undesirable to criticise foreign governments? If we are to consider Governments in Greece perhaps he would like to read the history of the Communist rebellion there immediately after the war?

Industrial Investment

Mr. Biffen: asked the President of the Board of Trade by what means he collates the findings of his Department on expected changes in industrial investment with broadly similar surveys conducted by other organisations.

Mr. Dell: The expectations for investment reported by industry to my Department are compared with the changes in the responses to questions about investment intentions between successive surveys of other inquiries. This and other relevant information is used by the Government in making their own assessments.

Mr. Biffen: Since in certain respects the Government have now become converts to the Chicago School of Economics, is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is a great deal of gloom on the benches behind him about the future prospects for industrial investment in Britain? Can he say whether the broad consensus of evidence available suggests that the outlook is nothing like as gloomy as some of his hon. Friends suggest?

Mr. Dell: The broad consensus on this subject is in line with the Board of Trade's last investment intentions inquiry. This is in line with what the C.B.I. has said and with what the Financial Times,

on a very much smaller sample, said recently—that there would be an increase in investment in 1969 over 1968.

Mr. Barnett: Can my hon. Friend say whether the abnormally high interest rates are having any effect on current investment decisions?

Mr. Dell: They may have an effect on certain investment decisions, but our information suggests a substantial rise in investment this year.

Egg Advertisements (Trade Descriptions Act)

Mr. Raphael Tuck: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that local weights and measures authorities are not prosecuting those responsible for advertisements for eggs produced under battery conditions which misleadingly suggest that the eggs are produced under ordinary farm conditions; and if he will seek to amend the Trade Descriptions Act so as to enable him to take such proceedings himself.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: We have no reason to suppose that local weights and measures authorities are not properly carrying out their duties in this respect. I understand that prosecution is pending in at least one such case. The Act already enables any Government Department—or indeed any other person—to prosecute.

Mr. Tuck: Is my hon. Friend aware that many people who deplore the battery system receive eggs which are either advertised as "fresh farm eggs" or labelled as "free range eggs" when they are battery-produced eggs? Can she suggest any way of combating this exploitation of the public by deliberate dissembling?

Mrs. Dunwoody: I agree that this is most reprehensible. It is my impression that many of these labels have been removed since the Act came on to the Statute Book and that the wording is now different for the sale of eggs. If my hon. Friend has any evidence I suggest that he brings it to the attention of the local weights and measures authority.

Retail Distribution (Investment)

Mr. Alison: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is satisfied that


the level of investment in retail distribution is adequate in relation to consumer expenditure; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Dell: Investment intentions as reported to the Board of Trade indicate a rise in investment in 1969 and 1970 both by the distributive and service trades as a whole and by the retail trade itself. There is no reason to suppose that consumption is being frustrated by the lack of investment in retailing.

Mr. Alison: Since the service industries in general and retail distribution in particular are discriminated against by S.E.T and the Government's investment grant policy, is it an accident or design of socialist planning that the service sectors are the principal growth sectors for capital investment under this Government?

Mr Dell: Investment in retail distribution has risen recently. That clearly is welcome to the hon. Gentleman, just as it is welcome to us. I am glad to see that this investment is rising without the assistance of investment grants.

Strikes (Loss of Exports)

Mr. Wall: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will give an estimate of the value of exports lost through official and unofficial strikes, respectively, during each of the past four years.

Mr. Crosland: It is not possible to make a reliable estimate.

Mr. Wall: This is an important matter. Does not a rough estimate of the figures illustrate the need for legislation to cure what has become known abroad as "the English sickness"?

Mr. Crosland: No, sir. The question of legislation is a separate point which has been much discussed. As for the "English sickness", the House must get the matter in perspective. Of course, it is true that strikes can do damage to our export trade, particularly in sensitive industries like the docks. It must be an object of national policy to reduce the number, especially of unofficial strikes. There are two points which are constantly ignored in the Press. The first is that the loss of exports is frequently made up afterwards. The second is

that almost all the major countries with which we are in competition have strikes which are equally damaging to their exports.

Mr. Spriggs: Is my hon. Friend aware that more good would be done if he would consult his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity on the matter of finding out the cause of strikes?

Mr. Crosland: Yes, sir; I agree.

Dame Irene Ward: Can the President of the Board of Trade say how we are getting on with the problem of the container ships? Are our container ships still held up in the port of Rotterdam? Cannot the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the flow of trade in the new container ships is carried on without all this interference from unofficial strikes and other strikes in the Docks?

Mr. Crosland: If the hon. Lady will put down a Question about container ships—

Dame Irene Ward: But the right hon. Gentleman ought to know the answer.

Mr. Crosland: If the hon. Lady will put down a Question on that subject, which bears little relation to the original Question, I shall be very happy to answer it.

Mr. John Lee: Will my right hon. Friend say how much damage to the economy has been done by the export of capital by private investors which could have been invested in this country?

Mr. Crosland: That again appears to be a somewhat different question.

Oral Answers to Questions — AVIATION

Third London Airport

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the President of the Board of Trade what estimate he has made of the cost of the Roskill inquiry; and if, in view of the consensus of evidence already submitted to the Commission in favour of Foulness and the lack of local opposition, he will instruct the Commission to call off the inquiry into the other three listed inland sites and to confine their inquiries to the


advantages and disadvantages of Foulness as compared with other coastal sites.

Mr. William Rodgers: We expect the cost to the Government to be about £1,000,000. In order to put this sum into perspective, I should say that the direct investment alone in a third London Airport is likely ultimately to exceed £200,000,000. The answer to the second part of the question is "No, Sir".

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: I understand that to start with the Government's cost was a small part of the total cost of this particular inquiry, and would my hon. Friend not accept that an inland site is unsuitable and that it should be eliminated at this stage of the inquiry, and that the remainder of the inquiries could fruitfully look at Foulness in comparison with other possible coastal sites?

Mr. Rodgers: The answer to the first part of my hon. Friend's Question is, "Yes"; to the second, "No".

Sir A. V. Harvey: Taking into account the future growth of traffic, what is the latest possible date that the third London Airport or home counties airport has to be available to deal with this very difficult situation?

Mr. Rodgers: In broad terms, we are talking about the mid-'seventies.

Mr. Boston: Does my hon. Friend recall the very strong representations indeed which have been made against an airport on this site from people in Essex and Kent, not least because of the damaging effect this would have on the holiday trade, and on people enjoying comparatively inexpensive holidays there? With respect, any suggestion along the lines suggested by my hon. Friend would be regarded as very much worse than the Stansted affair?

Mr. Rodgers: I agree that this is by no means a black and white issue. I think the experience of the last month has confirmed most people in their view that it was a very wise decision to set up an inquiry of this kind.

Turnhouse Airport, Edinburgh

Mr. Dalyell: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on his plans to improve Turn-house Airport, Edinburgh.

Mr. William Rodgers: Not at present.

Mr. Dalyell: What can be done in the short term to avoid embarrassing delays at the time of next year's Commonwealth Games?

Mr. Rodgers: In the short run there is not a great deal which can be done, but, as my hon. Friend knows, complex problems are involved here, and a great deal of capital expenditure is at stake.

Earl of Dalkeith: Is the Minister aware that holding back this much needed investment in this important Scottish airport is also holding back the returns which will come to the Scottish economy, and to the British economy?

Mr. Rodgers: Yes, I understand the point made by the hon. Gentleman, but we have to look carefully at the benefits, and at the timing, if public expenditure is to be wisely incurred.

Trident Aircraft (Airports)

Mr. Dalyell: asked the President of the Board of Trade which airports in Great Britain are equipped to receive Trident airliners, using automatic landing equipment, installed by British European Airways at a cost of £6 million.

Mr. William Rodgers: Heathrow, Gatwick and Prestwick have improved instrument landing systems to support automatic landing in Trident aircraft in runway visibilities down to 600 metres, and one of the Heathrow runways has additional equipment which permits operations in lower visibility. One runway at Liverpool is expected to reach this standard shortly and Manchester should follow early in 1970.

Mr. Dalyell: Granted low cloud and East coast fog, should not Edinburgh be the next in line?

Mr. Rodgers: I would not care to comment on whether it should have the top priority. My hon. Friend has made this point to me, and, as he knows, we are giving serious consideration to it.

Mr. Fortescue: In view of the preeminence of Liverpool Airport among non-British Airport Authority airports, would not the Minister consider it a tragedy if Liverpool Airport were to be closed?

Mr. Rodgers: That is a totally different question.

Liverpool Airport

Mr. Tilney: asked the President of the Board of Trade what requests he has received for financial assistance for the airport of Liverpool.

Mr. William Rodgers: None, Sir, although the question was broadly explored at a meeting held with representatives of the city earlier this year. Assistance is already given by way of the aerodrome navigation services provided by the National Air Traffic Control Service at an estimated net loss in the current year of about £200,000.

Mr. Tilney: Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that the upkeep of the Liverpool Airport is a very heavy burden on Liverpool's rates? Will he bring to the attention of the licensing authorities that Merseyside can never be in the same passenger catchment area as Manchester?

Mr. Rodgers: Yes, we are fully aware of Liverpool's problems. I understand that a Report by McKinsey's will be considered by the city council very shortly. The hon. Gentleman raises a much wider question when he asks us to give directions to the A.T.L.B.

Mr. Fortescue: Is the Minister aware that Liverpool Airport, in contrast with most municipal airports, has never had any financial help from the Government, except, as the Minister has said, for navigational aids? Would he not consider it to be undesirable if this fine airport, which in a decade must become part of the national network, were to be closed because the ratepayers could no longer bear the burden?

Mr. Rodgers: It would be a pity if the airport were to be closed. But we must recognise that some of the investment in airports has been entered into with perhaps too little consideration of the likely growth of traffic and also of the competitive achievements of the railways.

SHIPPING

Trawler Safety (Report)

Mr. Wall: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will now make

a statement on the Holland-Martin Report on safety at sea.

Mr. James Johnson: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will now make his preliminary statement on publication of the Holland-Martin Report upon safety of the trawling industry.

Mr. McNamara: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will now make a statement on the Holland-Martin Report on the Trawler Industry.

Mr. Crosland: I will answer Questions 20, 54 and 81 at the end of Question Time.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order. Can I give you notice, Mr. Speaker, that I want to raise a point of order on those Questions later?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman can give me notice.

TRAWLER SAFETY (REPORT)

At the end of Questions—

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Anthony Crosland): With permission, I will now answer Questions Nos. 20, 54 and 81.
In February last year, following the tragic loss of three Hull trawlers, I appointed a Committee of Inquiry into Trawler Safety under the chairmanship of Admiral Sir Deric Holland-Martin. Its report is published today and copies are available in the Vote Office.
I am most grateful to the chairman and his colleagues for the exceptionally valuable work which they have done. The Government accept the report in principle, subject to consultation with the industry as to its detailed implementation and financing.
The Committee's recommendations fall into four categories. First, they propose that a support ship should be provided on a permanent basis to give trawlers meteorological, medical and technical assistance; it should be stationed mainly off North-West Iceland in the winter months, but should go wherever it was needed during the rest of the year.
Secondly, the report makes extensive recommendations on the construction of


trawlers and on safety and fishing equipment. Amongst the more important matters covered are stability and structural fire protection.
The third category of recommendations, on which the report lays much emphasis, relates to conditions of work on beard trawlers. The report argues that many accidents to crews and casualties to vessels result from fatigue, and recommends that, after consultation between the owners and unions on the most practical way of achieving them, longer minimum rest periods at sea and longer breaks in port should become mandatory.
Lastly, a number of recommendations relate to management and training in the industry, and are addressed mainly to the industry itself.
Taken as a whole, the recommendations of this extremely thorough report will profoundly affect every aspect of the fishing industry—the construction of vessels, the conditions of employment and the economics of the fishing operation. I am sure that the recommendations are right in principle. I shall now need to consult the industry in order to obtain their views on the technical and financial implications of the recommendations. In co-operation with my right hon. Friends the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State for Scotland, I shall initiate these consultations at once.
Meanwhile, I am glad to announce that the Government will again provide a support ship off North-West Iceland this coming winter.

Mr. Wall: While welcoming this comprehensive report, particularly as it affects the support ship stability and conditions of work, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman, first, whether he will give serious consideration to building a specially designed support ship on the lines of the German "Frithjof"? Secondly, what will be the approximate cost of these recommendations and how will it be divided between the Government and the industry?

Mr. Crosland: The question of a specially designed support ship is discussed in some detail in the report. Compared with having the "Orsino" this winter, this is a longer term issue which I shall need to discuss with the industry.
It is not possible to put a precise figure on the cost of these proposals, but it will be substantial. How this should be shared is one of the most important matters I must discuss with the industry.

Mr. James Johnson: May I congratulate my right hon. Friend, who, like myself, has a big deep sea fishing fleet in his constituency, on producing this report, and also offer my thanks to the Committee? I believe that the report can be the basis of a genuine fishermen's charter for the future.
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that many of the proposals in the report do not need legislation in the autumn in the Merchant Shipping Bill? Will he get on at once with the job of implementing all the recommendations which can possibly be carried out?

Mr. Crosland: I judge that about a quarter of the recommendations will involve legislation. I shall seek to put some of the provisions in the Merchant Shipping Bill when it is reintroduced next Session. Other provisions may need a separate Bill.
On the general point, my hon. Friend knows that, representing a fishing constituency, I feel strongly about the matter. I am sure that this must and should be a breakthrough on the whole question of safety. In this industry the number of fatal accidents is about 17 times the average and many times the number in the coal mining industry.

Dr. Winstanley: Whilst welcoming the report and the right hon. Gentleman's Answer, may I, having worked as a deck hand on a deep sea trawler—albeit more than 30 years ago—draw attention to the fact that rest periods at sea and breaks in port have been urgent matters for many years, and that they could be dealt with immediately without waiting for other matters to be dealt with?

Mr. Crosland: I think that the industry has been slow on the matter that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, which is one of the central recommendations of the report. I shall want to discuss with both sides of industry how rest periods can best be dealt with. I am anxious not only to have these rapid discussions, but to introduce legislation


at the appropriate moment to make these rest periods mandatory.

Mr. McNamara: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the report has been warmly received by the Transport and General Workers' Union? Although it differs on matters of detail, it warmly welcomes the Government's decision to press ahead, and, in particular, my right hon. Friend's statement that he is eager to introduce legislation. On behalf of the Members of the union and, in particular, their wives and families, I thank my right hon. Friend for his attitude to this matter.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: On behalf of this side of the House, may I endorse the Minister's thanks to Admiral Sir Deric Holland-Martin and his colleagues for an extremely thorough report. In view of what will undoubtedly be an important addition to the Merchant Shipping Bill, may I suggest that any debate in the House should await the reissue of that Bill during the next Session?

Mr. Crosland: Yes, Sir. I should think it most unlikely that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will provide time for debate in the next three days, anyway.

BRITISH FORCES, GERMANY (OFFSET EXCHANGE COSTS)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. CAROL JOHNSON: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress has been made towards new Anglo-German offset arrangements for the current financial year; and if he will make a statement.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Fred Mulley): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like now to reply to Question No. 104.
We reached agreement yesterday with the Federal German Government on offsetting the foreign exchange costs of British forces in Germany during the two financial years 1969 to 1971.
These costs are currently expected to be about £198 million over the two years and the Federal German Government

have undertaken to bring about offsetting payments to the United Kingdom during the two-year period to the current equivalent of about £106 million.
This sum will be made up as follows. Purchases of defence equipment and services will account for about £47 million; German public authorities will purchase at least £36 million worth of goods in this country and the Federal Government will help to promote certain civil private sales to a value of about £23 million.
In addition, the Federal Government have agreed to offer Her Majesty's Government a Government-to-Government loan denominated in dollars of DM 500 million—£52 million—on the very favourable terms of 3½ per cent., repayable after 10 years.
Taking all these measures together, 80 per cent. of the estimated foreign exchange costs of our forces in Germany over the two year period will be covered, the same percentage as in the case of the United States-German Offset Agreement.
The agreement we have reached represents an improvement in a number of respects over the last agreement which, in turn, was an improvement on the one before. The House will notice, in particular, the provision for a higher rate of purchases of defence equipment and services and the important contribution represented by the favourable terms for the loan, which involve direct Federal budgetary payments.
I would add that over the next two years we expect to benefit to the extent of about £17 million from the expenditure in this country of United States Air Force units transferred here in 1967–68. Taking this contribution into account, as we did for previous years, over 88 per cent. of our estimated foreign exchange costs in 1969–71 will be covered.

Mr. Johnson: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that statement, and congratulating him on what he has achieved, may I ask how it compares with a similar agreement which, I believe, has recently been concluded between the German and United States Government, and, secondly, how the loan terms of this new agreement compare with those of last year?

Mr. Mulley: On the second point, the loan terms this year—it is a Government-to-Government loan; not a bank loan—


are 3½ per cent. interest for 10 years, against last year's interest of 5¾ per cent. for a four and a half year term. Compared with the United States-German agreement, the total amount covered is the same, 80 per cent.
We have a slightly higher proportion of budgetary contribution, but on the United States side they have a higher percentage of defence purchases, because, as is well known the German Air Force is re-equipping with Phantom aircraft which come in this accounting period.
The trend of our defence sales to Germany is upwards. We have allowed rather more in the next two years than last year, and I think that the trend, with the technological collaboration with Germany, will be for a higher proportion of our future agreements to be of defence sales.

Mr. Maudling: The Answer referred to offsetting foreign exchange costs. May I ask questions on two points? First, as regards the loan, surely this is a question not of offsetting foreign exchange costs, but of postponing the foreign exchange bill? Secondly, on the purchases, surely these are only offsetting foreign exchange costs in so far as they are purchases which would not otherwise have taken place? Will the right hon. Gentleman say how much of these purchases, in his calculation, would not otherwise have taken place, in particular referring to private purchases which presumably will be made on commercial terms, anyway?

Mr. Mulley: As to the first point, it is clear that a loan is not offset in the same way—[HON. MEMBERS: "Or in any way."]—as defence expenditure, but there is a substantial offset element this year for the first time, a substantial budgetary contribution for the first time, because the loan is at a rate of interest very much below the current market rate, and to that extent it incurs an acceptable offset arrangement.
On the question of purchases—the right hon. Gentleman made this point last year—in the negotiations I made it quite clear that we could not accept the full amount that will be shown by the accounting of the purchases. The £36 million is the sum that will be reckoned, but both sides expect that this sum will be very much exceeded, because I made

the point that we could not put in the whole of the purchases by public authorities, because many of them will go on in any case. We had to allow for this point of additionality. It is impossible to say what percentage would not be bought when we were taking only £36 million of what might be £50 million of purchases.

Mr. Maudling: The right hon. Gentleman did not answer my question about private purchasing. What estimate has he made? The right hon. Gentleman says that they do not take into account the whole of these figures of £47 million, £36 million, and £23 million. What figures do they take into account?

Mr. Mulley: The private sales are not a case of German private industry buying from us. It is the case of the Germans assisting sales by British firms, for example, of aircraft, to third countries. This is the purpose of the civil private sales which is, I repeat, an item which has been in a number of previous years.

Mr. Dickens: Is my right hon. Frined aware that few of us on this side of the House are deceived by this miserable ragbag of arrangements with the West Germans which are designed to hide the true foreign exchange costs of the B.A.O.R.? Is my right hon. Friend further aware that the only effective way of reducing these costs is to make a phased military withdrawal from Western Germany as part of a European security pact?

Mr. Mulley: I agree that one could reduce costs by withdrawing our forces, but that does not happen to be Government policy. Unhappily, we do not as yet have the European security arrangement to which my hon. Friend referred.

Mr. Grimond: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree that it is impossible for the House to know whether this arrangement is good or bad unless we can be told, first, whether the extra purchases by Germany are substantial. What is the rate of purchases for the comparable current period? Second, is £23 million a certainty, or merely a hope that German private sources will spend this money? Third, when he says that it is covered what all this means is that he has put off payment. He is now borrowing 500 million Deutschemarks at


3½ per cent. and we eventually have to pay this back.

Mr. Mulley: I agree that the loan means that the money has to be paid back. As I said last year, this is, unfortunately, obvious, but our main concern is to relieve the military foreign exchange costs and borrowing money at 3½ per cent. is an effective way of doing that. It involves a substantial subsidy by the Federal German Government who will have to borrow the money at a higher rate.
It is impossible to say what extent of the German public purchases or private purchases will take place without the agreement, but the amount has gone up each year and I am satisfied that without the very considerable accounting procedures and checking that goes on these sales would be much less than they will be under the agreement.

Mr. Moyle: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that without waiting for the European security pact or a phased military withdrawal from Europe it would be possible in these days of air travel to save a substantial amount of money by stationing more of the Rhine Army forces in this country?

Mr. Mulley: That is a different point, but I think that one has to make the point that our presence in Germany is part of our N.A.T.O. commitment. We are not there only or mainly at the wish of the German Government.

Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: Will the right hon. Gentleman make sure that the loans being provided this year and next are shown separately in our balance of payments figures and are not just lumped in together so that the figures look rather more favourable than they are? Last year, we undertook a commitment to pay back in four and a half years. Now we have undertaken a commitment to pay back in 10 years. Is not this one more case of mortgaging the future?

Mr. Mulley: All these excellent doctorings about the evils of borrowing are known to us all in our private as well as our public capacities. One realises that if one borrows money, one mortgages the future. The methods of the Opposition in this field accounted for

many of our difficulties when we took over. The question of the figures in our balance of payments position is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I shall draw his attention to the point made by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. John Mendelson: While understanding that my right hon. Friend does not take kindly to the jeers and attacks from the other side of the House which supports the policy of keeping full the force of the B.A.O.R. in Western Germany, and make criticisms of the way in which this Government are not succeeding any more than the Conservative Government did in making a good offset agreement, may I ask my right hon. Friend to direct his attention to the essential point?
Has he considered the more limited action of withdrawing a certain number of these troops, not the whole of the B.A.O.R., in the face of the really absurd policy of taking on another loan against the possible background of the revaluation of the German mark and the dangers of having further commitments for payment in the future. Does it not make sense to agree to some reduction which the previous Chancellor announced in the House two and a half years ago?

Mr. Mulley: Some reductions have been made in the size of our forces in Germany in previous years, but our present position is part of our N.A.T.O. commitment and what my hon. Friend suggests raises questions way beyond the offset agreement. On the question of repayment, I repeat that for practical reasons the money has been borrowed in dollars.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: May I press the Minister on the question of how the £52 million will be shown in the balance of payments figures? If it is to be taken as credit this year and next, this is the old accountant's trick known as teeming and lading, which is basically taking all the credits this year and leaving the liability to one's successors.

Mr. Mulley: I cannot compete with the hon. Gentleman on accountancy terms. I must take his word for these techniques. This is essentially a matter for my right hon. Friend, but if I had any desire to conceal the matter I should


not have taken the first opportunity, since we had word only this morning about the final agreement, to inform the House of what had been done.

Mr. Michael Foot: Why should we have to borrow the money to carry out an extremely foolish pledge which the Conservative Government made in 1954 and which many of us protested against at the time—the extremely foolish pledge to keep troops in Western Germany until the end of the century? When will the Government carry out the statement made by the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, that we were not prepared to go on paying out this money?

Mr. Mulley: I have already said that the question of our troops being there is part of our N.A.T.O. commitment, and it is a much wider question than the question of this offset agreement.

Mr. Doughty: I am sure that the House will be grateful to the Minister for having made this statement by means of answering Question No. 104, which would have had no chance of being reached in the ordinary way. The same consideration applies to two other Questions which were grouped with Question 20. Nobody knew that the Minister would make his statement. If he had made an ordinary statement notice would have been given. Could not the practice be changed so that when Ministers, quite properly, take advantage of answering Questions after half-past three, information can be given to hon. Members in the Lobby previously?

Mr. Mulley: On that point of order, I apologise if any discourtesy has been caused to the House. We were not sure that the German Government would endorse this arrangement until this morning and, therefore, to give prior notice would have been very difficult. I thought that the House would want for once to hear it first and not read it in the newspapers tomorrow morning.

Mr. Doughty: May I make it clear that in this matter I am criticising or attempting to have changed the general practice?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. and learned Member is making a useful suggestion which I think will commend itself to most hon. Members.

CONTINENTAL SHELF .(LICENSING)

The Minister of Power (Mr. Roy Mason): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement on Continental Shelf licensing.
As the House knows, great success has been achieved in the first stages of exploration and development of the United Kingdom Continental Shelf. In less than five years since the first batch of licences was issued, five major commercial discoveries have been made; natural gas is being used in quantity by the gas industry; and large supplies have been contracted for by the petrochemical industry. Already, we can be confident of 4,000 million cubic feet per day in the mid-70s. This fine achievement will be of great value to the economy.
Over the past year I have been considering the next stages in the exploration and development of the United Kingdom Continental Shelf. My objective has been to realise the maximum benefit to the economy in the exploitation of these national resources.
The two most important considerations are to maintain a continuing and vigorous effort on the United Kingdom Continental Shelf and to do this in a way which secures the maximum advantage for the economy in terms of the balance of payments and of low energy costs.
The first objective can only be achieved by continuing to take advantage of the immense experience and resources of the oil industry. To achieve the second it is my intention that the nationalised industries and British companies should play a larger part in future.
Large tracts of the North Sea and almost all the Irish Sea are still unexplored, and I have decided that the time has now come to invite applications for a limited number of blocks in both areas.
In the North Sea, the bulk of the territory to be offered will be in the north, since most of the blocks in the south were licensed in 1964 and 1965 and will not come up for reallocation before the end of 1970. The criteria by which I shall judge applications will be similar to those used in 1965, though with some added preference for groups involving the


Gas Council and the N.C.B. and other British interests.
In the Irish Sea, I intend to make two changes. First, it will be a stringent criterion that applications for licences should provide for participation by the Gas Council or the N.C.B., through direct partnership or options or other acceptable arrangements which the parties may agree between them. Secondly, I have informed the Gas Council that an application by the council to act as operator in a limited area in the Irish Sea would be welcome to the Government so that the gas industry can gain the practical experience necessary to equip it to play an even more active rôle in the further development of the United Kingdom Continental Shelf. For this purpose it is the council's intention to operate through a wholly-owned British hydrocarbons company.
Further north, between the West Coast of Scotland and the Outer Hebrides, I shall shortly be granting the Gas Council and British Petroleum a licence in the North Minch, for which they have jointly applied. This, being technically a landward area, comes under different arrangements from the North Sea and Irish Sea.
Finally, to clarify the present position of the Gas Council and to make sure that it is in a position to exploit to best advantage any oil it may find, I intend to seek powers by legislation for the Gas Council to search for, refine and market oil. Appropriate provisions will be included in the Bill on the re-organisation of the gas industry which I shall be presenting next Session.
To sum up, I shall be increasing the public stake in the continuing exploration of the Continental Shelf. In the Irish Sea, in particular, I envisage the Gas Council and N.C.B. being extensively involved, with the Gas Council, through its British hydrocarbons company, playing not only a larger but a more active role than hitherto. At the same time, I shall be offering private industry renewed opportunity to contribute to our national objective of rapid exploration of the resources of the Continental Shelf.
Invitations to apply for licences will be published in the next two or three months.

Sir J. Eden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his proposals are wholly

unacceptable to this side of the House? The first question which one is led to ask is: why is this being done? In what way will these proposals add to what the Minister described as the immense experience and resources of the oil industry? Why, having paid tribute to the oil companies, does not he leave them to get on with the job, instead of forcing them into partnerships that they may not wish to go into?
Is it not very wrong that taxpayers' money should be used in this highly speculative field in order to let the Gas Council gain experience in a field for which it was never intended? Has the Gas Council been given powers to search for oil anywhere in the world? Has the Minister considered the international implications of what he has just said?

Mr. Mason: On the latter point, no one would make a statement without considering the international implications. Do I take it that the hon. Member, speaking on behalf of the Opposition, is against British companies playing a larger part in exploiting gas and possibly oil in the North Sea together with the international oil industry—not only the National Coal Board and the Gas Council, but companies such as B.P., Burmah and I.C.I., all of which are participating in North Sea exploration?
Secondly, as to international oil companies, 51 are already playing a part in North Sea exploration and will still be able to apply for licences in the northern sector of the North Sea on their own, or as consortia or in partnership with British-owned companies and the Gas Council and the Coal Board. In 1964, when the Tories issued the first licences, I am told that only 3 per cent. of the licences went to nationalised industries. We intend to step that up.

Mr. Dalyell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his statement will be as acceptable to many technical people involved in the industry as it is to his hon. Friends? We find it an excellent statement. What will be the difference in staff recruiting policies of the Coal Board from now on?

Mr. Mason: I thought it right to establish what is an embryo British hydrocarbons company to give the Gas Council a new dimension. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, it is right that we should also have our own expertise.


Therefore, it will be necessary for the Gas Council to recruit the necessary experts and technical staff to start this sort of operation.

Mr.Lubbock: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Tory Front Bench spokesman is not speaking on behalf of the whole Opposition and that we welcome his statements, particularly the confirmation of 4,000 million cu. ft. per day and that there will be an increase in public participation in the exploration of the North Sea and the Irish Sea?
Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether this entails any increase in borrowing powers for the Coal Board and the Gas Council, which were agreed fairly recently? Has he any reason to believe that applications such as he has mentioned, with substantial participation of the N.C.B. and the Gas Council, will be forthcoming for Irish Sea blocks? If he is to create this British hydrocarbons company, does not he think that it should take over the concessions now operated by the Gas Council and the Coal Board, leaving it as the sole operator of the Continental Shelf?

Mr. Mason: I do not think it necessary to disturb the present arrangements and to give the Gas Council's new hydrocarbon company those responsibilities. In the Irish Sea, as is known, only five blocks have been issued so far for production purposes and they are between the Coal Board and Gulf Oil, and a nationalised industry is, therefore, already involved in that sea. I was asked about the money. The Coal Board and the Gas Council are already spending £18 million—£7 million respectively on exploration and £11 million on development—and this will be a gradual exercise. I do not visualise that any extra borrowing will be involved.

Mr. Sheldon: While paying tribute to the useful rôle of the overseas oil companies in carrying out the exploration and investment which they undertook in North Sea gas, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he will accept the congratulations of many of us who believe that he has made a wholly right decision in making sure that a great proportion of the exploration goes to British companies who can provide for this country some of the wealth which is ours as of right?

Mr. Mason: I am obliged to my hon. Friend. My statement is designed to do most of that. It ought to be on record that the international oil companies have played a great part, and there is no reason why that should be slowed down. There is no reason why there should not be the exploitation and development in the North Sea and Irish Sea to give us the gas supplies that we require.
As I said, 51 companies had been involved, in 24 groups, and so far 14 have put more than £25 million in the North Sea and they have had no return at all and have found no gas.

Mr. Maudling: Is the Minister aware that in his reply he was both definitely and, I fear, deliberately unfair to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden). In no way did my hon. Friend say that he was against the extension of the interests of British companies, and the Minister should not pretend that he did. As my hon. Friend said, what we are against is this further extension of nationalisation on a very large scale. Will the Minister give one simple reason why the extension of nationalisation should improve on what he has himself described as the very satisfactory present situation?

Mr. Mason: The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden) said that my proposal was "wholly unacceptable". He did not say "partly unacceptable"; he had no reservations. He said that it was wholly unacceptable. The right hon. Gentleman cannot wriggle out of that. There are a large number of British companies which are involved in the North Sea operations and they probably want to be involved in the Irish Sea operations, too
Secondly, as I said, when the Tories issued their licences in 1964 the nationalised industries got 3 per cent. We stepped that up in 1965 and we hope that that trend will continue. It is right and proper and in the national interest, if this country is to exploit to the full the natural and national resources around its shores, that it should have the expertise available.

Mr. Maudling: The Minister must not persist in misrepresenting my hon. Friend, who made it absolutely clear that


this proposal is unacceptable simply because it involves an extension of nationalisation.

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I want to hear the counter-exchange and questions.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Does the Minister realise that the country and all who understand the complexity of the oil industry will be amazed at the lack of understanding shown by the questions from the Opposition Front Bench? To enable the country at large to realise the benefits of his constructive announcement, will my right hon. Friend issue a White Paper for the benefit of the country and of consumers in particular?

Mr. Mason: I do not think that a White Paper is necessary on this matter. I was pleased to hear a Scottish voice, because Scotland will now be involved. B.P. and the Gas Council have applied for licences for the West Coast of Scotland—the coastal area called the Minch. I hope that Scotland will benefit from that.

Mr. Peyton: While we all wish to see increased British participation in the North Sea, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman what evidence he has to suggest that there is increased enthusiasm on the part of the British taxpayer to take part in a highly speculative enterprise when he is a locked-in shareholder in the nationalised industries? What grounds has the Minister for suggesting that either of these industries has the experience or the capacity to carry out these operations which are envisaged? Is he suggesting that the best legacy which he can offer the British people is a series of dry holes, as I think is probably the case?

Mr. Mason: One of the problems is that we lack nationally the experience and expertise which the international oil companies have and it is right that we should develop it, so that we can exploit this wealth fruitfully for the British taxpayer, who will benefit from it.

Mr. Eadie: Is my right hon. Friend aware, much as the Opposition may wriggle, that when he made his statement today he was speaking for the people of Britain? Secondly, is he aware

that the people of the country, realising that a new source of wealth will exist within our shores, want to take part in sharing in the exploitation of the new source of wealth?

Mr. Mason: Of course, it is in British interests, and certainly in the interests of British companies, and publicly-owned companies, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Will the capital employed in this enterprise by nationalised industries be raised on Government guarantee and at a Government rate of interest? Secondly, whatever arguments there may be about the concern of the Gas Council, what has this to do with the National Coal Board?

Mr. Mason: The Gas Council has been involved from the start. It has taken an interest in the North Sea, although its operations must obviously have bypassed the right hon. Gentleman. Secondly, as I said to the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), I do not visualise any extra borrowing being required. They will both go into it slowly, with a small number of licences at first, and will gather experience in a gradual way, which is right.

Mr. Oakes: Is the Minister aware that the implications of this decision will be to put Britain among the foremost nations of the world—if not the foremost—in the science of oceanography? Is my right hon. Friend aware that the developments from the previous licences in 1964 were mainly with American equipment? Will he give full encouragement to all the licence holders, both public and private licence holders, to use British-made equipment in their exploitation of both the North Sea and the Irish Sea?

Mr. Mason: Although I cannot press that upon them, I will encourage them to try to use as much British equipment as possible. No doubt my hon. Friend is aware that in the purchasing of British rigs, which can cost between £.1½ million and £2½ million, and in the development of their helicopter operations and their ships for 24 hours surveillance around the rigs, they are bringing employment and are already saving foreign exchange.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Before arriving at this conclusion did the right hon. Gentleman have any consultations with the


Natural Environment Research Council, whose interest in the Continental Shelf is enormous and is increasing? Will he give an assurance that if he had such consultations the council was prepared to agree that what he was doing was scientifically sensible?

Mr. Mason: I have had no consultations with the body concerned, but I have no doubt that it would think it scientifically sensible. Is it not right that our own country should manage to build up a reservoir of experience and technically skilled people able to exploit the resources of the Continental Shelf?

Mr. C. Pannell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the voices raised against this decision from the Opposition benches are the voices of the sons of Conservative Members who proclaimed the interests of the royalty owners in the coal mines to bleed white the earth, and, presumably, now want to bleed white the ocean on behalf of their friends?

Mr. Mason: I hope that we are rapidly moving away from that situation.

Mr. GERALD BROOKE (RELEASE)

Mr. Hastings: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
the Government's negotiations with the Soviet authorities for the release of Mr. Gerald Brooke, and their apparent intention to exchange him for the Krogers.
The matter is specific in that it concerns known individuals, a British citizen viciously imprisoned by a foreign Power, and two people convicted of a career of treachery and spying against this country and the United States, two cases between which the Government have specifically said there is no connection whatever.
The importance is obvious for the unfortunate Mr. Brooke, but alas there is a more sinister aspect. It is at least possible that Brooke's so-called offence was contrived in the first place. But

whether or not that is the case, he has been blatantly used by the Russian intelligence service as a hostage ever since. For the British Government to surrender to this cruel blackmail would bear the gravest implications for the security of the State and the safety of British citizens in the future.
You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that I have sought on three separate occasions to raise this matter by Private Notice Questions. I do not question your Ruling on that—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Technically, the hon. Gentleman must never refer to Private Notice Questions which Mr. Speaker has not accepted.

Mr. Hastings: I accept that, and I apologise to you, Mr. Speaker.
The urgency now lies in the fact that Parliament is about to rise and that the stream of newspaper reports which are appearing on this subject can no longer be regarded as without significance. If Parliament is to have a chance to ascertain the truth and influence the course of events an immediate debate is necessary.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) was courteous enough to let me know this morning that he would seek to raise this matter under Standing Order No. 9.
The hon. Gentleman asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
the Government's negotiations with the Soviet authorities for the release of Mr. Gerald Brooke, and their apparent intention to exchange him for the Krogers.
As the House knows, I am directed to take account of the several factors set out in Standing Order No. 9, but to give no reason for my decision.
I have given careful consideration to the representations the hon. Gentleman has made, and to the issue itself. But I have to rule that the hon. Gentleman's submission does not fall within the provisions of the revised Standing Order, and, therefore, I cannot submit his application to the House.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order. I did not seek to raise this point of order earlier, Mr. Speaker, because you have said that if an hon. Member has a point of order at Question Time it is better to leave it until later, rather than to take the time of the House and prevent some Members' Questions from being answered.
My point of order ties up with the point that the hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) raised. It concerns the general principle of putting down sponsored Questions to obviate other Member's Questions on the Order Paper, and arranging to ask your permission and that of the House to make a statement which is allegedly on something which is urgent and important, when it has already been given to the Press and radio an hour or so before.
This is the case with regard to the Question on the Holland-Martin Report, because at 2.30 I heard on my car radio while coming to the House a full explanation and description of the contents of the report. It is taking advantage of both you, Mr. Speaker, and the House, if a Minister asks permission to make a statement in answer to a Member's Question when he or his Department must have given the report to the radio an hour or so before.
This is one isolated case, but it has happened quite frequently and it means that Members often lose the opportunity of putting their Question, or being here to put their supplementary Question when the information has already been given and the usual procedure of the House has been circumvented.

Mr. Speaker: I do not see how the last part of the hon. Gentleman's point of order arises, because the existence of advance information as to what would be raised in the House would help an hon. Member to be here to put his supplementary question.
The hon. Gentleman has raised two issues. The first is about sponsored Questions. Mr. Speaker is a political innocent. He knows nothing of the multifarious activities of Ministers and questioners in the way in which Questions appear on the Order Paper. To Mr. Speaker, Questions on the Order Paper

are just Questions—plain, simple Questions.
The hon. Gentleman has raised the other issue before. It does happen from time to time that there appears in the Press information that comes ahead of information that is given to the House. There is nothing Mr. Speaker can do about that. It is something that the hon. Gentleman must take up with the Ministers concerned.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Peyton: On a point of order. I would have warned you that I intended to raise this point of order, Mr. Speaker, if I had had an opportunity. I wonder whether we are to have a statement from the Leader of the House about the business of the House. It is rather extraordinary, even in an organisation run temporarily by the present Administration, that we should not be told of the intended programme one day beforehand.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman does not need to be assured that I share his curiosity. But the Leader of the House has not asked to make a statement, and I cannot compel him to.

Dame Irene Ward: On a point of order. May I ask whether the Leader of the House could tell us when we are to debate the Motion for the Adjournment?

Mr. Speaker: This develops from the point of order of the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton). The answer is the same. I have had no information from the right hon. Gentleman as to when the House will rise, or as to when the Motion for the Adjournment is to be debated. All these are matters of which I share the hon. Lady's ignorance.

Mr. Michael Foot: Further to that point of order. Do you agree, Mr. Speaker, that it would be much easier for the Leader of the House to give all hon. Members advance notice about our business if we were not subjected to continuous and monstrous interferences from the other place?

Mr. Speaker: That is a debate we must not anticipate.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I reminded the House yesterday that Mr. Speaker can take only one point of order at a time.

Sir A. V. Harvey: On a point of order. The House has been treated with great discourtesy. The Government have got themselves into a hopeless mess. The only people in the Palace of Westminster who can give any indication of what will happen are the men working the lifts. No doubt they are well informed, but as the Leader of the House is present surely we are entitled to know at least when we shall debate the Motion for the Adjournment? Many hon. Members—not including myself—have package tours arranged, and would like to know when we shall rise for the Recess. The Leader of the House usually treats the House with courtesy, and I ask him to do so now.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must remind the House that this is the day of the Consolidated Fund Bill debate, a day which is rather precious to back benchers. There are 45 debates ahead of us. What the hon. Gentleman must do is to consult his liftman, I think.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: On a point of order. Under the constitution, the other place is part of Parliament. Considering the courtesies which, by tradition, each House has to extend to the other, is it parliamentary for the other place's duty to be referred to as "monstrous interference"? If it is unparliamentary, should not the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) be asked to withdraw?

Mr. Speaker: The last part of the hon. Gentleman's point of order is otiose, since if it had been unparliamentary the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) would have been asked to withdraw his observation. That is one of the functions of Mr. Speaker. But it is in order for either House to criticise politically the other House. I believe that it occasionally occurs in another place.

PUBLIC OPINION REGISTER

4.20 p.m.

Mr, Norman Atkinson: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a published register on which opinions in relation to Government Green Papers and certain other Government policy documents may be publicly expressed and recorded prior to further Government action
I am seeking the support of the House to bring in a Bill to set up a public opinion record office as part of the Labour Party's policy to extend the scope of public participation in Government decision-making. I want, first, to quote from the 1964 Labour Party election manifesto, which says:
Our belief is that the community must equip itself to take charge of its own destiny and no longer be ruled by market forces beyond its control.
We are working for an active democracy, in which men and women as responsible citizens assist in shaping the surroundings in which they live. …
In furtherance of that, and so that we can create a method whereby people can become involved in decision-making, I submit to the House a very simple proposal. I do so by saying that I believe that it is the belief of everyone on this side that we should make the House a parliamentary workshop, and that if we are to do that we must find ways of bringing the workers into the whole process of Government decision-making.
The Labour Party owes many thanks to those who have formulated ideas to bring these about—not least to Mr. John Thane, of Transport House, who has done a great deal of work on this subject. I also hope that, by introducing the subject this afternoon, we will encourage my right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology to reveal some of the most exciting ideas that I know he has been working on for a long time on the creation of an institute of public opinion. I hope that the House will join me in saying to him that we look forward to hearing of the research and the work he has been doing now for so long.
The Bill deals with another aspect and will work something like the following. Following the publication of Green Papers and certain other Government


documents, and within a given time, nonprofit-making groups of not less than 25 people should be able to submit to a public opinion record office their ideas or criticisms contained within, say, 400 words. The record should be printed in a similar way to HANSARD as we know it at present, but not attached to HANSARD. It should be printed at convenient intervals throughout the year.
I think that the first question which is asked about this is one so often debated throughout the country. We ask all those groups of men and women vitally concerned in parliamentary debate and parliamentary decision what, if they were given an opportunity of selecting one opportunity among themselves to come along to the House of Commons and take part in a debate on a Green Paper, they have to say? That, I think, is the crux of the thing—finding a means whereby Parliament can understand what those people are saying, to give them an opportunity of participation in parliamentary debate even though they may not be here in person. Parliament could learn a great deal from understanding the views of people throughout the country.
The Government have introduced seven Green Papers in all and I want to quote from three of them. The first is the Green Paper recently issued dealing with public expenditure, in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer said:
The Government are issuing this Green Paper so that their proposals may form the basis of wider public discussion.
It is an important point to make and every economist in the country is concerned about this Green Paper. Every institute of economic study, every statistician, is vitally concerned with the proposals, and I think that everyone would agree that it is essential to get our economic arithmetic correct. But when the Chancellor says that the purpose is that the Green Paper should form the basis of wider public discussion, how do these people get into the discussion so as to record their opinions?
The second Green Paper I want to quote from, "The Task Ahead", was issued by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in February. He wrote this in his introduction:

It is right that these prospects and the choices with which they present the country should be the subject of discussion not only with industry, but also in Parliament and among the public as a whole. It is the purpose of this document to provide the necessary basis of fact and economic assessments on which discussion can proceed.
I know that many trade union branches which would like to take part in this discussion and which have a great deal to say, for instance, about the re-allocation of industry and many other problems which are outlined in the document. Yet these people find themselves unable to take part.
The third Green Paper from which I quote was issued by the then Minister of Health in July last year. He outlined the purpose of the Green Paper and invited members of the public, professional organisations and many others to take part in a wide public debate, and he wrote:
To sum up, my aim is to reach a clear view, based on full debate.… This Green Paper is intended to focus the debate as the time for important and far reaching decisions draws near.
Tremendously important issues were involved in that Green Paper as to the Future of the National Health Service but again, how did the Minister propose to include the public in the discussion and, indeed, how would the medical groups themselves and various other professional people take part?
We have no desire to imitate the ideas which have been practised in the United States whereby a Congressman can read into the Congressional Record up to 300 words of extraneous matter. Nor do we want to imitate the practice which gives him the right to add two pages to the Congressional Record Appendix. We feel that this is open to abuse and has many limitations. Indeed, it is open to the permission of the Congressman to include comments in the Congressional Record. There are weaknesses in that system and we do not want to go along in that way
Our purpose, therefore, is to experiment with some completely new ideas of bringing people into the confines of parliamentary debate, of making it possible for parliamentarians to understand the things which are being said throughout the country. At the moment, the only way open to the public is to issue a letter to The Times, or some other


newspaper, in the hope that the Government machine will take note of it, or they can write to the Minister. But if that is done it is discourteous, whilst writing to him, at the same time to publish to the Press their letter to him. We know that very often these letters find the way to the Whitehall incinerator, which is perhaps known as the "laugh and tear-up box". That is often the end of ideas Resented to the Government as part of the great debate.
I believe that the Labour movement is sincere in wanting to enlarge the scope of our democracy and to make it possible for people to get involved in it and to make their views known and to take part in the wider debate. That is why I seek leave to introduce the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Atkinson, Mr. Houghton, Mr. C. Pannell, and Mr. Willey.

Mr. Speaker: I am advised that the hon. Member has not produced the Bill. We will arrange for him to bring in the Bill tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time

4.32 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: May I remind the House of the scope of the debate? Hon. Members may raise all questions of administrative policy which are implied in or covered by the grant of Supply, but questions of taxation and legislation may not be raised. The Chair will be reminding the House of that from time to time during the debates.
Any hon. Member may speak once and any hon. Member may join in any of the debates. Once we have exhausted the list of those who wish to speak in the first debate, we shall move to the next subject.

Orders of the Day — SCOTLAND (FAMILY PLANNING)

Mr. John P. Mackintosh: Hon. Members may wonder why it is necessary to seek a debate on this subject at this time. They will know that, as a result of a Bill brought in by my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks), it is now proper for local authorities in England and Wales to set up family planning clinics and for those clinics to give advice and assistance on family planning free of charge on medical grounds and with a charge, if necessary, on social grounds
Therefore, not only have the Government supported my hon. Friend's Bill, but they have identified themselves completely with the notion of a proper family planning service. Moreover, the Secretary of State for Social Services was invited to make the opening speech to the Family Planning Annual Conference and then he said:
I certainly do not need to preach to you about the benefits conferred on the community by a good family planning service. But I should like to stress the very great importance which I attach to this development. It


is my avowed aim eventually to provide comprehensive family planning within the National Health Service.
So we have a situation in which the Government are identified with the notion of family planning facilities and advice being made available to those who desire them.
Yet there is the peculiar anomaly, which is not wholly appreciated in the rest of this country, that Scotland is not in this position and was deliberately excluded from this legislation. It is worth pointing out how this happened, because this is the situation which I am now asking the Minister to remedy.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks) was preparing his Private Member's Bill, it was originally intended to apply it to the entire United Kingdom. Provision was to be made throughout the country. But during the course of discussions he encountered some opposition from the Scottish Office and he found that it would be easier to proceed if the Scottish part of the Bill were dropped, but he agreed to drop it only on the understanding that there would be separate legislation shortly thereafter to deal with the Scottish situation.
This is not uncommon. The original Scottish National Health Service Bill came a year after the similar Bill for England and Wales. In the circumstances, my hon. Friend, whom I am glad to see in his place, decided to leave Scotland out of the operation of his Bill.
Later, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar) wanted to bring in a Ten-Minute Rule Bill and he, too, was advised not to do so, because legislation on the subject was shortly to be introduced by the Government. This legislation was introduced. It was the Health Services and Public Health Act, 1968. Section 15 applied solely to Scotland and gave the Government power to permit local authorities to provide in Scotland the family planning facilities which local authorities are currently permitted to provide in England and Wales.
The peculiar thing that happened was that local authorities then received from the Scottish Office Circular 21/68, which said:
in the light of the present economic situation it has been decided to defer for the present bringing this Section into force".

As a result, Scottish local authorities were warned off this activity. It is this circular, which I am asking the Government to withdraw, so as to allow Scottish health authorities to play the same part as their counterparts in England and Wales.
It may be argued that the fact that this power does not exist does not prevent a certain amount of family planning advice on other than purely medical grounds from being given in Scotland, and that is true. The citizen may now get such family planning advice and assistance from a general practitioner, a hospital, a private consultant, certain family planning associations clinics, from two local authority clinics and from the Brook Clinic. But, in practice, all this adds up to very little.
The general practitioner, for instance, may charge for writing prescriptions and for advice, but not for examination, and the average charge in Scotland for this at the moment is 10s. 6d., although many general practitioners give free advice although anything which they prescribe has to be paid for. Private consultants clearly charge and have a very limited clientele.
Post-natal clinics of hospitals are entitled to give this advice and practical family planning assistance in the form of devices and so on free of charge. This is a curious anomaly, but again, in practice, it applies only to that limited group of people who know the problem and who ask specifically for this type of assistance.
The Family Planning Association clinics have done a tremendous amount of work, but they are finding that costs are rising, as is found by most private organisations, and they are running on a shoestring and often, although they would like to give assistance, they cannot do so. The most curious anomaly of all, which ought to concern the House, is the fact that there are cases where the Family Planning Association is not able to give free advice and help—cannot prescribe and offer assistance to prevent a pregnancy—but on the day after the pregnancy occurs, an abortion can take place under the National Health Service.
We find this situation increasingly intolerable. I want to push it before the Government and get them to act. There are two other local authority clinics set up, more or less under private initiative,


by the authorities, one at Aberdeen and one at Inverness. The Aberdeen clinic makes no charge, the Inverness clinic does, for certain categories. The total effect of the present provision of family planning advice in Scotland is that it reaches only that limited group which knows what it wants, seeks it out and asks for it. Thus it tends to be confined to those sectors of the community which inherently are not the problem sectors, where the need is not so serious due to social difficulties and where ignorance and family circumstances do not play a great part.
Why should we urge the Government to act now? I do not want to argue the general case for family planning, because it has been argued before. We do not now need to do a major job of convincing people. It is accepted that contraception is a matter for the individual conscience, but where people wish to have advice it should not be withheld artificially through difficulties created by the State, by lack of permission or of financial assistance. The result of the present situation in Scotland is in many ways alarming. Consider the illegitimacy rate. It has been rising steadily in the last four years.
In 1964, there were 5,628 illegitimate births; in 1965, the figure rose to 5,883; and in 1966 it was over the 6,000 mark. In 1967, it had risen to 6,663. In percentage terms, illegitimate births had risen, as a percentage of live births, from 5·4 per cent. to 6·9 per cent in these four years. There has been a rise in the number of abortions, and the figures have been given by the Secretary of State. I appreciate that in the past some of these abortions may have been illegally carried out or carried out privately outside the National Health scheme. Virtually all abortions in Scotland are now performed under the Health Service. But it remains true that the number of abortions has risen since the Act was introduced from 190 a month in 1968 to 230 a month in 1969.
I put these figures not for any moral argument, but to deal with the argument contained in the circular, that the reason why family planning advice cannot be extended is an economic one. Let us look at this fantastic argument. I am putting aside the tremendous costs in emotional terms, with which I do not need to deal because we are all aware of

them. I am looking at it purely from the angle of the financial argument raised by the Government. Let us consider the cost of these extra illegitimate births and abortions to the community in toto. Luckily, we have some figures.
Southampton City's local health authority produced admirable figures of its family planning service. It pointed out that it had a designated group, as most local authorities do, of problem families. In the year before the service was introduced, these families had 142 children. After the service was introduced the figure was down to 38—there were 110 births fewer in that group. This does not take into account the reduction that there might have been in other groups in the area. Taking this problem group alone, and looking at it from an economic point of view, the 110 births which did not take place resulted in a saving in one year to the Exchequer of £2,775 in maternity grants, family allowances and welfare grants. It saved the local authority £5,678, judging by the numbers, in past years, of these children which had to be taken into care.
Indeed, the saving to Southampton was about £8,000 a year. If that continues for only a few years, the cost of the family planning service there is paid for several times over. The net saving to the community is, in 15 years, about £70,000. Dr. Ian MacQuen, of Aberdeen, who is well known in this sphere, since Aberdeen has the only major clinic operating in this area in Scotland, reckons that for every £ spent in Aberdeen on family planning there is a saving of £4 to the community. The family planning service operated by him costs only £10,600 per annum.
I am not looking at this emotionally or morally, because we haw debated these aspects. I am sticking to the argument that the Government have bought up in their Circular, that the economic situation prevents them extending the Act. I submit that there is no case for this. I would continue to press for these services even if they were loss-making, on moral, personal and emotional grounds of allowing people to have wanted children, when they wanted them, and none other. The economic case made by the Governement falls to pieces.
A second argument was that there was no evident demand for this in Scotland. I deny this. It is ridiculous to


expect local authorities to come clamouring for this power. It is clearly low down in comparison with houses, roads, schools, etc., as an immediate pressure. What we can see, however, is that in the brief period since my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington introduced his Bill making this possible in England and Wales, out of 204 authorities, 34 have set up an entirely satisfactory service, 129 have set up a reasonable or restricted service, and only 40 authorities have done very little. It is clear that where this permissive power is given there is a demand for it, and it is carried through.
The final difficult problem is who opposes the carrying out of this Section of the 1968 Act? Are the people opposed to it? The evidence of the Gallup Polls in Scotland is glaring—there is an overwhelming demand for family planning advice. Even on the most controversial ground, whether birth control advice should be available to unmarried women, there is a majority in Scotland of 43 per cent. in favour as against 36 per cent. against according to the latest poll.
I know that there is a strong religious group in Scotland with deep conscientious objections to family planning, and I respect it. This group pays great attention to social problems in its parochial advice, in its care for families, and its people. It is a group that I admire and with whom I co-operate in my constituency. But I know of very few Catholics who would argue that for the non-Catholic population who do not have these conscientious views unwanted pregnancies and abortions are better than available advice. Any Government who press ahead with this will find that it is something which is reasonable and regarded as quite proper. The public regard the present situation as anomalous and are surprised that this Government should not be acting. I have already read out the wholehearted support for family planning in the speech of the Secretary of State. The Government are supporting the family planning association in England and Wales and contributes £20,000 a year to aid its training programme. It is carrying out research on this question and the Minister wants to make family planning a normal part of the Health Service. What is wrong with Scotland? Why are we having a different policy there?
The 1966 Labour Party conference overwhelmingly accepted this policy. It was passed nemine contradicente. The right hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South East (Miss Alice Bacon) who replied to the debate on behalf of the National Executive Committee accepted this as official Labour Party policy. Therefore, I cannot see that there is any party opposed to it, certainly not the majority party. Even those who are very worried about permissiveness in Britain and who are worried about the operation of the Abortion Act favour family planning.
In The Times today there is a letter by the President and Secretary of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which has been deeply worried about the working of the Abortion Act. Despite that concern, the penultimate paragraph of Sir John Peel's letter contains this sentence:
A really effective and centrally financed family planning programme is an urgent necessity in this country.
So I cannot see who is opposed to this simple administrative change which on financial grounds pays for itself over and over again.
Whilst thinking about this matter earlier this week, I went home and found my television set was on at the time, and a programme which some hon. Members may have seen called "Dr. Finlay's Casebook" was being shown. On the screen an argument was taking place on the precise point as to whether a family planning clinic should be set up in that little Scottish burgh. The arguments canvassed were the sort of things we are now discussing in the House. But the startling fact is that the serial is set in the 1920s and we are now in 1969. Forty years later and we have not moved on. We have a Tannochbrae situation here in the context of family planning in Scotland.
I do not wish to cast my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary as Dr. Snoddie, the reactionary gentleman in the serial. I know that my hon. Friend is a man of liberal and progressive views, but he and the Secretary of State between them have concocted a new version of the doctrine of "unripe time". When I have written to my hon. Friend asking him whether he would consider implementing this Section in the Act he has written back saying, "I agree entirely with what you propose


and with family planning, but do not press. It is coming very soon. Just do not make it more difficult. Be patient now". So I was patient for a considerable time.
But then, when I asked my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland in the Scottish Grand Committee on Tuesday, 8th July, why he was not doing anything, he said, "I am not doing anything because no pressure is being brought to bear upon me to do so". Between the two of them the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary have managed to keep this game up for a considerable period, until we are now forced to apply the pressure.
The case is an open and shut one. We know what we want. The public knows what it wants. The powers are there. The value is clear. I ask my hon. Friend not to do what is so often the current political habit—that is, to attempt to defend the indefensible and then slip through a concession in a few months' time. I ask him to concede this case immediately.

4.52 p.m.

Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith: I congratulate the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) on having raised this topic. I support him whole-heartedly in his plea for the provision of these facilities in Scotland. There is a tremendous need for proper education and advice to be available, in addition to the provision of facilities.
At the time that the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) introduced his Bill, there was a case for the abortion law being reformed. I am alarmed if the opportunity for abortion is made, as the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian said, an excuse for the failure to provide or to make use of proper family planning services. I wholly support the hon. Gentleman's argument that it is much more important to provide family planning facilities than it is to provide hospital attention for abortion later.
I do not believe that the provision of family planning advice and facilities should be made any excuse for promiscuity or allowed to be a licence for such. One of the greatest disservices that can be done to an unmarried girl

is for her to be made to think that the provision of contraception is an excuse for immorality. What can be exciting and adventurous, perhaps, at one time can lead to unhappiness and lack of fulfilment in marriage later. In any case, apart from any question of morals—there are morals involved, as the hon. Gentleman said—there is the very disturbing increase in the incidence of venereal disease. The danger to health of promiscuity must be spelled out loudly and clearly to young people.
So, coupled with the provision of facilities for family planning, which I support, we must ensure that there is good education and advice available. In no case is this more necessary than for the unmarried. We are supposed to be living in a permissive society. I want permissiveness to be cut short where it may affect the lives, future well-being and happiness of young people. By all means let us ensure that facilities are provided, but a lead must be given by the House as to how and in what circumstances those facilities are given.
I hope that in what I have said I have in some small way given a lead in this, because this is a moral issue as well as a medical and administrative one.

4.56 p.m.

Mr. Edwin Brooks: My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) is to be congratulated on having sought successfully to raise this important subject in the House today. I believe that the House will join me in congratulating him, too, upon his admirable speech, which was masterly in its exposition of the facts and devastating in its critique of the Scottish Office's dilatory inactivity and obscure double-talk.
The time has come for those of us who have for some years been concerned about this problem to start calling a spade a spade. My hon. Friend referred to suggestions which have been made that we should not be seen to be pressing actively for Scotland to be included. I, too, have heard these suggestions and have been disposed to wait in the hope that in the fullness of time a sense of urgency will come into the Scottish Office. But we have been disappointed in successive years. I am beginning to wonder whether if we go on pursuing this policy of silence about what needs to


be said and done, we shall, 40 years from now, still be in a Tannochbrae situation in Scotland.
It is not customary in the House for Members representing English constituencies, particularly those like myself, who had the good fortune to be born in Wales, to intervene in matters affecting Scotland. But my maternal grandfather was a Scot and I still have a residual interest in what happens north of the Border. I intervene in this debate not just to talk about Scotland, although I shall attempt to add to what my hon. Friend so excellently said, but because I believe that the Government's obscure policy towards Scotland is casting doubt upon the urgency with which they regard this problem throughout the Kingdom as a whole.
It is surely paradoxical—I think that there is an air of unreality about the debate—that we should be discussing, at a time when the mounting abortion rate is causing great anxiety throughout the country, the case for providing family planning services to those who wish to use them in Scotland. My hon. Friend described this as an open and shut case. The logic and the argument, however, seem to fall upon deaf ears.
This afternoon, perhaps for understandable reasons, the House is thinly attended. If we were discussing abortion in Scotland, many more Members would be present. Many more would be anxious to express their anxieties about this mounting social problem and often tragic personal problem. They would be saying, "If only we had an effective family planning service, we could avoid so much unnecessary human distress". This afternoon, however, we have the opportunity to talk about our priorities in this matter. Therefore, although I shall not detain the House long, I would like briefly to indicate my sense of disappointment—indeed, disillusion—at the way in which, so far, nothing has been done to activate the 1968 Act for Scotland.
In 1967, I was privileged to have the opportunity to introduce as a private Member the Bill which became the National Health Service (Family Planning) Act, 1967. As my hon. Friend has said, it was certainly my hope at that time that the Bill could have been so drawn up as to include Scotland, and, indeed,

Northern Ireland, also. It is customary in this House, however, for this sort of matter to be handled separately for Scotland. That was the case with the 1946 and 1947 Health Service Acts, which applied to the two parts of the Kingdom consecutively. Certainly, I, and, I am sure, many of my colleagues at that time, from both sides of the House, were fairly confident that the time would come within 12 months when the powers then given to local authorities throughout England and Wales would be extended to Scotland.
It is true that during the debate, although my right hon. Friend the then Minister of Health expressed full Government support for the Measure, some of my hon. Friends—my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar) for example—referred to their disquiet and their anxieties about the exclusion of Scotland from the provisions of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South, in particular, suspected that there might be forces within the Scottish Office which were actively hostile. A short time afterwards, however, when the 1968 Act was undergoing Second Reading, my hon. Friend, with his customary generosity, was the first to pay testimony to the recognition by the Scottish Office of the need for that Measure.
My hon. Friend said on 7th December, 1967:
It is really extraordinarily encouraging to see this Clause. For too long the Scottish Office has been saddled with the notion—or people have saddled it with the notion—of being opposed to any kind of social progress and unwilling to touch controversial social matters. By introducing this Clause and presumably being instrumental in getting it included, the Scottish Office has gone a long way in throwing off that kind of slur—which has been a slur and misconception."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th December, 1967; Vol. 755, c. 1782–3.]
We all shared my hon. Friend's feeling that that was a welcome earnest of good intent on the part of the Scottish Office and we looked forward throughout the country to a rapid implementation of the Measure.
As far as I can trace, nothing was said during the Second Reading debate or in Committee on the Health Services and Public Health Act, 1968, as it became, to show that there would be any dilitory


delaying tactic on the part of the Government. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, who will be replying to this debate, made it clear that the Government were sympathetic to the matter. He referred to this point on Second Reading on 7th December, 1967, and again in Committee on 8th February, 1968, when he elaborated at some length. My hon. Friend said that
When the Bill which related only to England and Wales was going through last year, it was made clear on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that if a similar Bill had been produced relating to Scotland he would have given it his general support.
My hon. Friend went on to say:
We have taken the first opportunity, as provided by this Bill, to bring Scotland into line with these provisions. The demand for this kind of provision in Scotland is as great as the demand south of the Border."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 8th February, 1968; c. 246.]
It really is strange, to put it mildly, that in the light of that observation about the existence of demand north of the Border, we should now hear it hinted that there is no evidence of any significant demand north of the Border. We cannot go on having this sort of contradictory information given to the House.
We have, as usual, to read the small print, and in Section 79 of the Health Services and Public Health Act, 1968 we find that the Act in its application to Scotland
shall come into force … on such date as the Secretary of State may by order so made appoint; and different dates may be appointed under this section for different provisions of this Act or for different purposes.
It is under that power that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has delayed the activation of Clause 15 of the 1968 Act on the ground, as my hon. Friend has said, that the economic circumstances do not warrant giving this power to local authorities.
That argument will not hold water. These powers which would be given to local authorities are in any event voluntary powers. They are not powers which local authorities in England and Wales have so far been instructed to use. If they feel that on economic grounds they cannot implement these powers, even to the extent of 1 per cent. or 2 per cent. of the possibilities, presumably they will not implement them. That, however, is no

argument for the Government saying that they have no right even to consider the opinion of implementing them. The argument which lays stress on the economic situation is quite spurious.
Not long ago, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, whose mandate applies only to England and Wales, replied at Question Time to a series of questions on family planning. He indicated some anxiety about the slow implementation of the Family Planning Act in England and Wales, and he said:
I share my hon. Friend's concern. It is very unfortunate that this new service was launched at a time of increasing financial stringency. Some local authorities seem much too inclined to regard the small sum they give to this work as being the first thing to dock when things are difficult, which is something I greatly deprecate."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th April, 1969; Vol. 781, c. 788.]
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services was there saying that it was quite wrong for local authorities to exercise parsimony in this matter and that it was something which he deprecated, yet, at the same time, his colleagues in the Cabinet and the Scottish Office were, apparently, quite prepared to dock it in the very first place and not give local authorities even the opportunity to spend this money. There is something very contradictory about all this.
When we look at the facts, which, in the long run, must surely dictate policy, we find cause for alarm. The general position concerning illegitimacy throughout the United Kingdom is bound to cause the House anxiety. In every year since 1959, expressed as a percentage of live births, the illegitimacy rate has gone up. It has gone up from 5·1 per cent. in 1959 to the provisional figure for 1968 of 8·5 per cent. Thus, one in twelve of all live births is now illegitimate. This is a trend which has continued throughout the 1960s despite the potential availability of more secure contraceptive devices such as the pill.
The figures for Scotland give no cause for complacency. In 1956, the rate for Scotland as a whole was 4·3 per cent. In 1961, it had risen to 4·6 per cent. By 1966, another five years later, it had risen to 6·4 per cent. In Glasgow, from 4·8 per cent. in 1956 it had risen by 1966 to 8·8 per cent. In the case of other Scottish cities, we find Dundee with a figure in


1966, as high as 98 per thousand, Edinburg 82, and Aberdeen 75. Nearly all cities are on a raising trend.
It is true that as far as one can detect from the figures, the abortion rate in Scotland is somewhat below the rate for the United Kingdom as a whole, but during the period from 27th April, 1968, to the end of the year, 1,537 abortion operations were carried out in Scotland.
These are the ones we know about—and we can be quite certain that there are many, many more which are not recorded—and it is true also that Scottish women and girls come south of the Border to use the clinical facilities provided in London. The figures are difficult to disentangle, but figures have been supplied to the House which show that this does occur. I am not saying—it would be an over-simplification to say—that abortion would be abolished overnight if we had comprehensive family planning services with domiciliary facilities and so on, but I would have thought it fairly evident that a substantial inroad would be made into the abortion rate if there were such comprehensive family planning service available.
In conclusion—and I must apologise for having detained the House—

Mr. Simon Mahon: Is my hon. Friend certain that, with a greater provision of family planning services, the abortion rate in this country would go down? Is he absolutely certain?

Mr. Brooks: If my hon. Friend presses me to say whether I am absolutely certain, I say "Yes" to him. It seems to me that there are bound to be a proportion of pregnancies and abortions which arise because of inadequate knowledge of, and facilities for, family planning.
It seems quite evident that this is so. If there were facilities available to provide accurate and up to date information there would surely be a significant fall in the abortion rate. Let us not forget that in the wider community there is still a lot of ignorance on this subject. I express a personal view in saying that I think there would be a reduction in the abortion rate, but I suspect that it is a view shared by a majority of people. One can say that there is absolutely no evidence to the contrary, and common-

sense surely dictates that what I have said is, in substance, true.
However, my final point concerns the economic excuse. My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian has already said enough to dispose of the argument that there will be savings in taking no action. Just over a year ago the Director of the Family Planning Association produced a detailed, comprehensive, cost-benefit analysis of the family planning service for the country as a whole. Of course, the figures he gave for individuals apply equally to Scotland as to England and Wales. We do forget what costs are involved in bringing into the world children who are unwanted, who are illegitimate, who may spend their lives in institutions, and which will certainly be saddled with more than their fair share of life's problems.
Maternity grant is £22 per child, maternity allowance £81 per child, welfare milk £7 per child, hospitalisation, £60 per child, health visitor, midwife, etcetera, £20 per child. This works out at about £200 per year per child. The estimate by Caspar Brook of this cost is a total of about £32½ million. Probably an equal amount is involved in delinquency, police action connected with delinquency, and so on. Then there are the costs of education. These are some of the orders of magnitude of the costs involved, and amount to about £100 million a year of expenditure by the community in the care and upbringing of children who are not planned and who are often not wanted, unfortunately, by their parents. There are about 70,000 children a year now who are born illegitimate, and then there are the so-called shotgun babies—90,000 a year, according to my figures.
We must, therefore, realise that the provision of family planning services is not less urgent in Scotland than in England and Wales. In conclusion, I would urge my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, because I know that all his instincts are with us on this, to stop this equivocation, and to say quite clearly that, after three years, it is time to bring Scotland into line with England and Wales, and to make available the provision of a service which, I am convinced, apart from whatever economic argument there may be, would go far to minimise the social tragedy and the personal costs


and misery involved in abortion and the of other hidden costs of the unplanned and unwanted child.

5.15 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Bruce Millan): I think the first point I would make in answer to this short debate is that I think all hon. Gentlemen who have spoken have perhaps not sufficiently drawn the distinction between family planning being made available on the National Health Service on medical grounds and family planning being made available on social grounds, and what we have been talking about this afternoon is the second question I have just mentioned. I think it is true to say that the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) rather gave the impression that there was absolutely nothing being done in Scotland by local authorities on family planning. Now that is in fact not an accurate statement of the position at all, as I shall show in just a minute or two.
However, I should right away make clear that there is absolutely no question at all of the Secretary of State for Scotland taking about family planning a view which is against its development. That is not the situation. It never has been the situation, and it is not the situation now. Perhaps I may be allowed to quote one or two extracts from the circular which the Secretary of State sent out—No. 10 of 1966—on 1st June, 1966, to the local authorities asking them at that time to plan for the future development of their family planning services. This is what he had to say, and this is how the circular started:
The Secretary of State has had under consideration the present and future development of family planning services, which in his view can make an important contribution to family welfare. Planned parenthood strengthens family life; lack of planning, often due to ignorance of effective methods of contraception, may lead to marital disharmony, ill health and social breakdown.
That was the view of my right hon. Friend and myself at that time, and is now. It was drawn to the attention of the local authorities, and, of course, at that time it was in the context of family planning services being made available on medical grounds.
Particular point was made and emphasis laid on, for example, what was

said by the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) about the need for education in family planning matters. For example, we said:
General education in family planning is a most important part of health education. It should feature in courses of talks or discussions arranged with parents' groups, mothers in clinics, etc., in general publicity; and not least in the day-by-day educational activities of health visitors, midwives, social workers and others in their visits to homes, provided they have no reason to believe that advice on the subject would be unwelcome. In all these ways help can be given in creating a stable and healthy family life.
It is necessary to put these remarks on the record, because there was an indication in some of the remarks which have been made in this debate that the Secretary of State was against family planning in principle; in one speech there was even the suggestion that the Scottish Office had prevented local authorities from doing anything at all in the field of family planning.
Following on the circular, we asked local authorities in Scotland to give us returns of what they were doing in the field of family planning, and the present situation is something like this. I make this clear, that all along in this context I am talking of family planning on medical grounds rather than on social grounds, and I am not by any means trying to belittle or reduce in any way the important distinction we are drawing here. The position in November, 1967—and I imagine that the position has improved since—was something like this, that 37 of the 55 local health authority areas had family planning services available in their areas. In most cases services were provided by way of the agency of the Family Planning Association, but seven authorities provided services themselves. That left 18 areas where services were not available at that time. Three of the authorities were arranging with the Family Planning Association for services to be provided. The remainder of the authorities were mainly in sparsely populated counties, and several mentioned the availability of services in the areas of neighbouring authorities. Others—and again this referred to the sparsely populated counties—referred to the availability of services provided by general practitioners. That was the situation in November, 1967, and I have reason to believe


that in terms of the availability of services the position will have improved a good deal since then.
Although I have not more up-to-date information on a completely systematic basis, it was then the position that most local authorities either spent money directly or assisted voluntary bodies providing family planning services. Usually this was the Family Planning Association, but one authority mentioned a Catholic birth regulation clinic, and another a local women's advisory association.
Most financial assistance took the form of cash grants, sometimes per capita payments, and sometimes premises for clinics were made available free of charge. At that time in Glasgow there were four clinics, three of them in local authority premises, and the Corporation made a contribution towards the expenditure of the Family Planning Association. It is necessary to put on record all these facts; otherwise the impression might be created that absolutely nothing is happening in family planning in Scotland.
We are concerned today with the extension of the services which are at present available from services on medical grounds to services on social grounds. I would not accept as completely accurate the account given by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian about the preliminaries to the introduction of Section 15 of the Health Services and Public Health Act 1968. That was Government legislation, and there was at that time no question of the Secretary of State being coerced, or having to be persuaded, to introduce this Clause in the 1968 Bill. Our intention, which was made clear when the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks) was going through, was that at the first convenient opportunity we would introduce a similar provision for Scotland, and this was done in the Health Services and Public Health Act, 1968.
We are not arguing here about the desirability of making these services available in Scotland. I take the view that it is desirable that these services should be made available in Scotland, and so do the Government. Had it not been the Government's view, the provision would no thave been included in the 1968 Act.
All that we are discussing this afternoon—and I am not saying that this is not an important consideration—is the timing of the implementation of this provision. Again, the impression has been given in public discussion in Scotland that this provision of the 1968 Act has been singled out for deferment. I am not laying any blame on anyone for this. This is not so. Several provisions in the 1968 Act which would have involved local authorities in additional expenditure have been deferred, the two which I want to mention on a United Kingdom basis.
For example, Section 13 of the Act, which converts the power of local authorities to provide home help services into a duty, has similarly not been brought into operation. I imagine that all hon. Members who are here this afternoon would think it very important that the local authority should be given the duty of providing home help services as soon as possible. But that Section, as well as Section 15 which is our immediate concern in this debate, has been deferred.

Mr. Mackintosh: The Under-Secretary is putting his finger on the point when he says that certain Sections have been deferred on economic grounds on a United Kingdom basis. What is puzzling is why one Section which has been deferred on economic grounds in Scotland has been implemented in early legislation in England. Why is there is difference between Scotland and England on family planning?

Mr. Millan: I will come to that in a moment. The point which I am making here is that a decision was taken on the 1968 Act that certain Sections of that Act which involved local authorities in additional expenditure would be deferred. It is unfortunate for Scotland that the timing of the respective pieces of legislation should have been as it is, but I shall say a little about that from the local authority point of view in a moment.
This Section has not been singled out for deferment. Other Sections in the same legislation which involved local authorities in additional expenditure have also been deferred. I have mentioned the home help service, and I should also mention Section 45 which gives local authorities a general power to promote the welfare of the elderly, and which I should very much like to see implemented


as soon as possible, as would local authorities. But these provisions, because they involve additional expenditure, have been deferred.
I accept that the amount of money likely to be involved in the implementation of this family planning provision would possibly be quite small. We are at present asking local authorities to curb expenditure in other directions, and there is a feeling of resentment in some local authorities that the Government should ask them to curb expenditure and at the same time put additional responsibilities on their shoulders. There is a lack of logic in asking local authorities on the one hand to curb expenditure, and on the other hand, to put additional responsibilities upon them, and that is why we have felt that this provision should not be implemented in Scotland.

Mr. Simon Mahon: Does not my hon. Friend agree that the provision of extra home help services in places like Glasgow and Liverpool is very much more important than the extension of family planning?

Mr. Millan: I would not like to separate these provisions and to say that one is more important than another. When we are asking local authorities to keep expenditure within reasonable limits, we must sometimes prevent them from doing things which in other circumstances they would be very happy to do. We have to be sure of what we are doing before we ask them to take on additional commitments.

Mr. Brooks: Does not my hon. Friend agree that, to the extent that the powers which the Act gives to local authorities are to be implemented solely at the discretion of local authorities, there is no reason for local authorities to feel bound to spend money if they consider that there are higher priorities?

Mr. Millan: There is validity in that, but I must maintain the general point that during the last few months it has not been easy to place additional responsibility, whether discretionary or not, on local authorities.

Mr. Ian MacArthur: I have the greatest sympathy with the point which the hon. Gentleman is making about the financial problem and

the restrictions placed upon expenditure by local authorities. The Minister appears to be advancing his argument in a selective manner. He paid little heed to it when we called some attention to the matter in relation to implementation of the Social Work (Scotland) Act, which will put a heavy financial load on local authorities. It is extraordinary to hear the Minister now advancing this argument when last night he supported a Bill which will place an additional financial burden of over £200,000 on Glasgow and Edinburgh in relation to fee-paying schools.

Mr. Milan: I doubt whether it would be in order for me to debate once again the matter of fee-paying schools. I have stated the general position in regard to asking local authorities to take on additional commitments.
There were a number of other points upon which I should like to make one or two comments, since some of them are very important. I consider the present illegitimacy rates to be a matter of great concern. I ought to point out that the trends in Scotland are matched by the trends in England and Wales. There is not much evidence at the moment that the slightly different statutory position in Scotland from the point of view of family planning is making any appreciable difference to the figures.
The provision of family planning services, taken by itself, is obviously a matter which ought to have an effect on illegitimacy rates. Unfortunately the whole question of illegitimacy is a much more profound problem than simply a matter of considering the extent of family planning and the availability of family planning advice and appliances. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington said, unfortunately the illegitimacy rates have gone up in the United Kingdom as a whole over a period during which, whatever may have been the legislative position, advice on family planning and the availability of family planning services have continued to expand considerably.

Mr. Brooks: Is my hon. Friend aware, however, that the percentage increase between 1967 and 1968 is the smallest annual percentage increase in any year in the 1960s?

Mr. Millan: I very much hope that that trend will continue in regard to England and Wales. The long-term trend, as my hon. Friend knows, has been upward, and at present the English and Welsh rates are still substantially higher than the Scottish rates.
I am sorry to say that there is not very much evidence in the Scottish context that the extent of family planning services available in different parts of Scotland, comparing one area with the other, produces very substantial effects upon illegitimacy rates.
Nevertheless, I take the point which was made. The illegitimacy rates are a worrying factor and we must all be concerned, whether through the extension of family planning advice and facilities or the provision of whatever other methods are available, to see that the rates are reduced.
This is also true of the abortion rates. It is too early in the operation of the 1968 Abortion Act to say that the figures in Scotland have shown a considerable increase. They have certainly increased in the current year to a level which is a little higher than they were running in 1968. It is too soon to say that there is any real sign in Scotland that the figures will continue to increase.
The situation seems to be that they are flattening out at the level at which they were running in the earlier part of this year. But these again are figures which we would very much like to see reduced. I speak as one who personally supported the Abortion Act, and I think that in general its effect in Scotland has been a very good one.
I should like to say, in conclusion, that there is no difference in principle between my hon. Friends and hon. Gentlemen opposite and myself on the desirability of bringing into operation this particular provision of the 1968 Act. We are thinking here simply of the question of the timing of its implimentation. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in the Scottish Grand Committee the other day, none of the local authorities has asked for this provision to be put into operation realising that the present position is purely temporary and is being kept under review. I hope that it will not be very much longer before we are able to bring this provision into effect.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harry Gourlay): Before we take the next subject, may I remind the House of the scope of debate. Any questions on administrative policy may be raised which are implied or which have been covered by the grant of Supply, but questions of taxation and legislation cannot be raised.

Orders of the Day — THE SEABED

5.34 p.m.

Mr. Evan Luard: Only two years ago a debate on this subject, that is, on the future régime of the seabed, would have been greeted with incomprehension and consternation in this House and elsewhere. It would have been thought somewhat similar to asking for a debate on the future régime of the moon and, who knows, we may quite shortly be having a discussion in this House and elsewhere on precisely the subject of the future régime of the moon! Those were the days which have been aptly called in a recent debate in the other place the pre-Pardo days, the days before Dr. Pardo, the Maltese Ambassador to the United Nations raised this vitally important subject in the United Nations.
Because there is now greater public awareness and public knowledge of this problem, I do not propose during the debate to go into a number of aspects of the problem and will concentrate on a single one. In addition, a number of aspects of this problem are now being discussed in different forums outside the main discussion in New York. There is first the question of disarmament which is now being discussed in Geneva. I do not propose today to say anything about that topic of disarmament of the seabed.
Secondly, there is the question of pollution, which has been discussed so far in I.M.C.O. and will be discussed again in the International Conference on the Environment which has been called for 1972. Again, although this is certainly relevant to the régime of the seabed, I do not propose to say anything very much on that subject.
Finally, there is the question of the fundamental international law governing the seabed: above all, the question of the limit of the Continental Shelf which was considered, in a very inadequate way,


in the Conference on the Law of the Sea in 1958. There is fairly general agreement in the discussions in New York—not universal agreement but wide agreement—that it would be very difficult to reach any final conclusion on this extremely controversial question of international law, until there is a greater consensus than at present on the question of the régime itself on the seabed.
Until one knows what kind of system will operate in the deep sea it is difficult for nations to decide how much of their waters or of their seabed they would preserve either for their own national jurisdiction or for their own exclusive national exploitation. Therefore, on that aspect again, I do not propose to say very much. I wish to confine my remarks to a single question.

Viscount Lambton: Before the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Luard) leaves that subject, could he say how he considers the law to work over this matter? Does he believe that the under-water territory is limited or, as has been argued by many jurists, that it extends, as in the case of St. Helena, to the division of land halfway to the next continent?

Mr. Luard: I think it is impossible to say exactly what the international law is. It is significant that one point on which there has been precise agreement in New York is that there is an area of the seabed which lies beyond national jurisdiction. Therefore, there could be no attempt to interpret the 1958 Convention, as it could be interpreted, to mean that nations could claim exclusive national rights to exploitation up to halfway across the ocean. That is one limited advance. It would not advance us if I were to expound my interpretation of the 1958 Convention or what I think the law should be. A convenient law would be to accept the 200 metre limit contained in the 1958 Convention and use this alone. Unfortunately, it is becoming very late to use such a limit at this stage.
I want to deal primarily with the question of what type of régime shall be established in this acknowledged international area, beyond the limits of national jurisdiction and exploitation. There is fairly universal agreement that some kind of rule or regulation is

required to govern this area, although there are very wide differences as to what exactly is implied by this. This has led to an exchange of somewhat esoteric terms, on which there are differences between States. Some nations speak of "internationally agreed arrangements", others speak of "international machinery", and others of "an international régime" or even "international control". They mean quite different things by these terms.
In the ad hoc Committee that was established immediately after the Maltese delegation raised this in 1967, there was considerable discussion of the various "principles" that should be applied in the exploitation of this international area. Two rival sets of principles were put forward. One, put forward mainly by the developing countries came to be known as List "A". The other was mainly formulated by the British delegation, but was subsequently supported primarily by the more developed countries, in later discussions. In many ways these principles do not diverge very greatly though there is one particular principle where they do diverge significantly, with which I shall deal later.
It was not possible to reach an agreed set of principles during the meetings of the ad hoc Committee nor during the meeting of the General Assembly last autumn. At that Session of the Assembly the whole question was remitted to a permanent committee to discuss the seabed. There has been further discussion during the two sessions of the Committee about the various principles, and different nations have put their views forward. It remains the case that so far there is no universal agreement, but it is also the case that on a number of principles there appears to be a considerable degree of unanimity. I say "appears to be" because it may seem a matter of self-congratulation that there is so much agreement already on these various principles; it would not be very difficult, for example, to reach agreement—there may be attempts to do so in the forthcoming meetings in New York—on a minimum set of principles. Unfortunately this is nothing like such an achievement as many people would like to believe, because these principles are of an extremely general and abstract character which can mean much or little.
For example, I said earlier that one of the principles which has been almost universally agreed is that there is an area of the seabed lying beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. It may seem that that is an important advance, at least it means that nations cannot carve out large areas of the seabed and say "This is ours. We intend to exploit it and not to let anyone else do so." Unfortunately this principle does not take us very far. Does it mean that that international area of the sea-bed belongs to anyone, that is that anyone can come along and say, "This belongs to no one and therefore I can exploit it as much as I like. I can sell it as much as I like". That is, first come, first served? Or does it mean that this area does not belong to any single nation and therefore belongs to the international community as a whole and cannot be exploited except under such conditions and according to such regulations as the international community lays down?
There is general agreement that the seabed should be used only for peaceful purposes. Does this mean, as some nations have contended, that it cannot be used for any kind of military purpose, defensive or offensive, or that it can only be used for defensive purposes? For example, are detector devices, designed to detect submarines, permissible in the area? Similarly, there is agreement that the seabed should be used "for the benefit of and in the interests of all mankind". Does this mean that the resources of the seabed and the profits from those resources must be shared equally among all the nations of the world, or does it simply mean that any nation can come along and exploit them, but that in doing so it must pay regard to the interests of other nations in respect of pollution, safety and such matters?
There is agreement that "special regard should be paid to the interests of developing countries". Does this mean that these countries must share directly in the profits of the resources of the seabed, or does it simply mean that any country or company can unilaterally exploit some area of the seabed, but voluntarily make a payment for international community purposes. Again, there is a good deal of agreement on some very general and worthy objectives, for example, that the régime should be an

"impartial" one, that it should be "effective" and "non-discriminatory". There is general agreement that it should provide a balance of advantages for all States, whether or not maritime States, including land-locked States. There is general agreement that the régime should provide a firm basis for future exploration and exploitation. But all these principles can be interpreted in a number of different ways. I hope that when my right hon. Friend replies he will not, in explaining the Government's policy, merely repeat, as did his hon. and noble Friend in another place, vague and abstract principles of this kind. He will be aware that if he does so he will be telling us nothing that we do not know already, and nothing which gives any indication of Her Majesty's Government's policy about the régime to be established for the seabed.
I want to refer to two points which are of fundamental importance and on which the House has a right to a clear expression of view from the Government. I said earlier that there was a general degree of agreement about the principles, but that there was one upon which there was great divergence. The first lot of principles put forward mainly by the developing countries, the "A" set of principles, includes a principle that the seabed and ocean floor and the subsoil thereof are the "common heritage of mankind". This is a principle which is obviously of fundamental importance, because it goes to the root of the whole problem. It is a very simple problem, but because of the rather esoteric language used throughout these debates it is never confronted. This is: to whom do these resources belong?
The developing countries and some others accept the principle that the ocean floor and the seabed and the subsoil thereof are the common heritage of mankind because they say that these resources belong to the whole of mankind, and although they cannot be exploited equally by the whole of mankind at least the benefits should be enjoyed by the whole of mankind. We have a right to hear whether the Government accept this principle, that these resources, however they may be exploited, are the common heritage of mankind.
If that is denied we really are back in the rather primitive situation of first-come, first served. If the Government


accept that these resources belong to nobody, they appear to be accepting that any nation or any company can begin to exploit them on the ground that they belong to nobody and, therefore, can be appropriated by whatever company gets there first. Therefore, it is important to know the Government's position on that point.
The second point on which we are entitled to a clear expression of opinion from the Government is that which will be discussed next month in New York about the type of régime which will be established and the kind of conditions which will be laid down for exploration and exploitation of the seabed.
Everybody agrees that there must be some régime and there must be some arrangements governing exploration and exploitation of the seabed. Indeed, a month or two ago the Secretariat of the United Nations, at the request of the Committee, produced an interesting document setting out a series of alternative possible régimes for the seabed ranging from a simple system of registration of claims by nations or companies hoping to exploit, through a system of licensing by which nations would have to receive some kind of licence from an international body to exploit particular areas, to a system of full-scale international exploitation of these resources.
It will be generally agreed that a system of registration alone would be totally inadequate to the type of problem that we have here. If registration only was required for claims to exploitation, we would again be back in the situation of first come, first served. It would be as if when giving concessions to exploit our own North Sea area we had said to British or, indeed, to foreign companies: "We believe that there are resources in this area. You can all come to this area and whoever gets there first can take the oil or the natural gas. So long as they tell us".
If we think about it, we will recognise that it will lead to total anarchy and chaos. It would perhaps mean that there would be cut-throat competition and a desperate race to reach the most profitable areas first. There would be no way of determining which nations had the right to particular areas because they had registered a claim; that is, that they

had notified some authority that they wanted to exploit any one area. Nor would there be any indication that the resources and the benefits of exploitation of the area would be shared equitably among countries. Therefore, I hope that the Government, in the discussions next month, will make clear that they do not regard registration alone as an adequate type of régime for these vitally important areas.
The second alternative, from a practical point of view, is the most likely to be adopted, namely, some system similar to that which we adopted over the North Sea and are about to adopt for the Irish Sea. That is a system under which an entire area of the ocean bed would be divided into different sections, presumably of equal area, and would be allocated either to particular countries which could in turn reach agreements and make concessions to companies, or direct to companies. It would not be necessary to have the same areas for every resource of the seabed. There could be a different grid, or system of allocation, for natural gas and oil, for the hydrocarbons —and for minerals, because often a different sized area might be the most economically efficient to use.
Similarly, different licences might be given for exploration and for exploitation. One way—again as we have done with our North Sea area—would be to give licences for a limited period, but to make provision for the relinquishment at least of part of the area after a certain time. I suggest that this is the type of system which, at least in the first place, the Government should support in the discussions at the United Nations. I hope that we will have some clarification about that at the conclusion of the debate. In this way the developing countries could be given a substantial share in the benefits of these resources. This would depend to some extent on the terms on which the concessions were made, but it would ensure that these resources were retained under the control of the international community. Private companies would often be gaining some profits from their exploitation, but we must accept that, at least at present, only large private companies have the expertise and facilities for direct exploitation of the resources. We are really concerned with where the main profits and control of that exploitation go.
The final method—and again I hope that the Government will not close their eyes to this possibility—is international exploitation as such. It is rather apposite that only two hours ago we heard a statement from my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power about the provision, which has been slightly amended, for our North Sea and Irish Sea areas. Some of the things that he said, partly in reply to hon. Gentlemen opposite, were extremely appropriate and relevant to this subject.
For example, my right hon. Friend said that it was not inappropriate for this country, in areas which are acknowledged to be available to it for exploitation—its own continental shelf—to ensure that British companies acquired a major share of the benefits of exploitation. I suggest that it is not inappropriate for the international community to ensure that it gains a large part of the benefit of the areas which it will be apportioning at some time in future.
Another similar point was made by my right hon. Friend. He felt that he had assured, by the decision that he had just announced, a considerable measure of public participation in this exploitation. To make an analogy with the international community, in that case there should be considerable benefit in international participation in the exploitation of this area. I accept that we do not have the international companies and resources which would make this possibility feasible in the immediate future. But, in considering the régime for this area, I hope that the Government will express the wish that some parts of the area might be reserved for fully international exploitation of this kind at some time in future.
In the past the Government have often made clear their concern that any régime for this area should not deter exploration and exploitation. This is obviously an aim which everyone must share to some extent. It is a question of degree.
It was rather interesting that, in the arrangements made for our North Sea area, the Government, in a sense, were rejecting the principle that this should be the overriding concern. They felt that it was important to ensure that the opportunities for exploiting our North Sea area should be fairly distributed among different companies and that the

nationalised corporations should have an opportunity of exploring and exploiting. Similarly, in considering the international area of the sea bed, it is not unreasonable to think that the avoiding of deterring of companies from exploiting should not be the sole consideration. Those are the two questions on which I very much hope my right hon. Friend will give us a clear statement of the Government's policy.
In concluding, I should like to reaffirm what I suggested at the beginning, namely, the enormous importance of this subject and of the decisions which may be reached in New York in the not too far distant future. What we are really concerned with here is the future ownership and the future exploitation of the major part of the world's resources. It is true that not all these resources will be exploited within the immediate future, but the decisions that are reached now about the principles which should govern that regime may determine, directly or indirectly, the benefits to be gained from those resources almost as far ahead as we can see.
What really is at issue here is whether those resources will be used primarily for the advantage of those countries that are already most developed, infinitely richer, and best able to exploit them from a purely commercial point of view, or whether those benefits will be shared equitably among all the nations of mankind. I am glad to say that the Government have frequently affirmed their desire to give the maximum possible aid to the developing countries. The Government have recently expressed regret that because of our economic situation they cannot do more to help the developing countries. I believe that this issue will be the prime test of the Government's goodwill in this matter, and of how far they mean to put into effect the noble sentiments which they have expressed on his subject.
I do not think that there is anything which the Government could do which would do more to assist the developing countries than to adopt a generous attitude towards this question of the future régime of the sea bed, because the resources available there are infinitely greater than anything that we shall ever have to offer the developing countries at this time or in future. Moreover, this


is a step which the Government can take which will be of inestimable value to the developing countries, but which will cost us very little. It is not a question of any sacrifice of our present standards of living, or our present national income, but only a willingness to forgo some of the benefits which our nation might acquire at some time in the future if we adopt a grasping and selfish attitude towards this important problem.
I hope, therefore, that in replying to the debate my right hon. Friend will make it clear that it is the Government's policy in the discussions in the Committee to give their support to this régime which on the one hand will ensure the fair distribution of the benefits of this vitally important area of the developed as well as to the developing countries, and on the other to do this by the same method that we have adopted in our Socialist Party in this country: by creating publicly-owned resources to be developed in a public way, and so establish perhaps the first productive process which is run neither by a private company nor by a nationalised corporation, but a fully international agency.

6.3 p.m.

Mr. John Taney: I congratulate the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Luard) on being so early in the ballot. He started his speech by saying that two years ago it would have seemed almost impossible to debate this subject. I remind the hon. Gentleman that a. year ago, almost to the day, I was lucky enough to have a debate on the Adjournment for the Summer Recess, in which I think he participated, on this very subject. At that time I wondered whether the whole doctrine of the freedom of the seas, one in which we have been brought up to believe, and to think of as paramount for the safety of Britain, should not be questioned because of the developments of technology, and because what we have is really anarchy on the sea bed and in the super adjacent waters, if that is the correct adjective to use. It is not really freedom. To get the production that tie world wants, some sort of law and order, rather than anarchy, ought to prevail.
I think that we can draw a lesson from what man did in this country when most of the land was covered with forests and

was also common land. Man was largely a hunter in many parts of the country, as he is in the sea now. There is very little farming of the sea today. A year ago I referred to what the Japanese have done in immensely increasing the yield of oysters. I was told only today that some states on the seashore of the United States are much more backward than the Romans were in their day, because in those States anyone can collect oysters. They cannot be protected. The Romans enclosed some of the bays of Italy so that the oyster beds would fructify. One must have some form of security and certainly of tenure if production is to increase.
The hon. Gentleman asked who these resources belonged to? And whether they should be the common heritage of mankind. That question certainly must be asked, but there is another question, too, and that is how can we increase those resources? I very much doubt whether we can do it without some law and order on the sea.
It seems to me that there are four parts of this problem. First, the deep ocean bed, which may be far from flat, which may contain great mountain ranges which do not break the surface of the sea. Second, the super adjacent waters above that, very undulating, and possibly rugged submarine landscape. Third, the Continental slope, which some nations will say extend very much further than do others, and, forth, the territorial waters.
I think that there is no shadow of doubt that nation states will and must continue to organise these last two. It will be very different to hand them over to an international body, but I believe that the time has come to hand the ocean bed and the great waters of the oceans over to some international agency. It is not much good handing them over to the United Nations, because China, with her huge sea board, is not a member of the United Nations. One hopes that in time she will be, but until then some other form of agency must be evolved. It is vital for all maritime nations to safeguard the right of innocent passage in those waters in peace or war, though one prays that there will not be another great international war.
How important is the question of the main waters and the food in them? I am told—and this is information from the F.A.O.—that the catch of North


Atlantic cod could probably be increased if there were half the number of fishermen after it, at half the cost, and that the possible savings could amount to as much as 175 million dollars per annum. This is one of the problems of organising the international fish catch of the world. Following that comes the great problem of what to do with half the fishermen who are now engaged on that catch, and also what would be the claim of all the other countries which at the moment do not have fishing fleets. One recalls that Taiwan has become a major fishing country, whereas 20 years ago it had no fishing fleet. There will be a constant demand for more countries to participate in the catch throughout the oceans.
How, too, can we obtain the necessary capital to exploit or farm the sea, if we cannot have security of tenure? Who would go into a great forest to exploit the lumber if he thought that somebody else would come in and cut down many of the trees on which he had counted for his own revenue? That is the position of the world's fishing industry.
There are three alternatives. First, we can partition the oceans and the seabed by agreement—as suggested by my noble Friend—which would obviously be unfair to the landlocked countries and many other countries which have only very small seaboards. Secondly, we can go bumbling along as we are now, with certain nations trying to grab as much as possible by claiming a vested interest in the exploitation of fishing rights in certain areas of the ocean. That would be reminiscent of the grab for Africa in the last century, and might well lead to as alarming incidents and near-war as the grab for Africa entailed. Thirdly —and much the most sensible line—we can create some international agency, somewhat like the World Bank, to grant licences and to control exploitation, in the way that licences are granted for the protection of the oil and gas in the North Sea or the Irish Sea or, for that matter, Liverpool Bay.
But there will remain quite a large problem for someone to deal with. The House will be aware that not long ago the great blue whale could be numbered almost in hundreds of thousands—certainly in tens of thousands. It is the largest mammal known. I am told that

there are no fewer than 1,000. Because of the exploitation of that mammal fishermen first turned to the sei whale, which has also declined enormously in number, and then to the fin whale. It is immensely important for the world to tackle this problem. I am told that now that they are protected these whales may recover, but that it will take about 50 years.
There has been one treaty which is of some interest. As long ago as 1911 there was the Treaty of the North Pacific, which dealt with fur seals. Four countries participated in that, but two of them—Canada and Japan—said that they would not catch any fur seals in the open sea, and they were rewarded for their denial by receiving 15 per cent. of the catch. These are the things that form precedents for action to he taken in respect of food and fish for the future.
Many people say that salmon will become scarce in our waters because of what the Danes are rightly doing off the coast of West Greenland. There is also the problem of tuna. There is the division between what is known as recreational fishing and commercial fishing. Sooner or later someone must decide what the quota should be—who may have to be bought out, and how the situation is to be controlled and policed. The only sensible thing to do is to create an agency which derives its revenue from royalties and licences and which has power to help in the greater production of food for mankind.
The question of pollution has been mentioned. Large areas of the sea are virtually deserts, because they are too dark for the survival of plant life on which the plankton feeds, which, in turn, ultimately feeds the fish. It is arguable that by man's action, artificial humboldt currents can be created. But, equally, if man decides to dump atomic waste on the ocean bed he does immense damage to the production of fish. Nobody controls that. There is no international body which says, "You can dump your atomic waste here, or there." It is anyone's decision as to where the waste should go. I therefore beg the right hon. Gentleman to support the action of the Maltese and others and to press for the setting up of some international agency which will be able to take one small faltering step towards a solution of this major problem.

Mr. Speaker: I remind the House that this is the second of about 40 debates. Reasonably brief speeches will help.

6.16 p.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: I accept what you say about reasonably brief speeches for those who are fortunate enough to be called early in the Consolidated Fund Bill debate, Mr. Speaker. My speech takes the form of suggesting a series of points which should be on the agenda for New York. Before dealing with the agenda, however, I want to point out that an informed section of opinion believes that the British organisation of marine sciences is far from satisfactory, partly because 12 different Departments are involved. A genuine Whitehall problem evists. In my view it would be a good thing to co-ordinate within, oddly enough, the Ministry of Defence, because the Navy have the hardware.
I am authorised to say, having had discussions with him both in Washington and here, that the former chairman of the American Marine Sciences Council—Mr. Hubert Humphrey—as late as one month ago, stuck to the opinion that the British effort would be very much more effective if there was one body with which the American Marine Sciences Council felt it could deal. Here is an informed opinion from a man who was a major politician and who took an active interest in his work in a rather esoteric subject. It may be true that fish do not vote, but here is a man who knew what he was saying when he suggested what the Government should do—and the Government should take this to heart. During the Recess there should be some consideration of Ministerial arrangements in this increasingly complex field.
The lawyers have had their say. First, some consideration on the New York agenda should be given to the management problems involved in any major operation on the sea bed. I want to give one concrete example. A real problem arises in connection with the Australian Barrier Reef—whether it should be developed for tourist purposes, for its very rich fish resources, or for scientific purposes. I do not expect my right hon. Friend to make any comment on this point during the debate, but some study, through our excellent representation in Australia—where I have just been—of

the problems of the barrier reef would be well worth while. Management techniques must be applied. If we learn anything from the moon project it will surely be that management techniques are vitally important. I put that as my first point on the agenda for discussion in New York, with the Australian representatives.
Secondly, I should like to see a follow up of the first international conference which was staged in marine sciences, that at Brighton, which several hon. Members visited. It would be a pity if this were in any sense to be a unique conference. It should be the first of a, series. It was an example of what international seminars and exhibitions combined can be, and certainly it was the opinion of international industry present that it was extremely successful and worth following up. At New York, would my right hon. Friend discuss, with other representatives there, the possibility of having a regular international conference—I do not say annually, but perhaps biannually?
Thirdly, in the matter of defence, I know that the proposals of Senator Claiborne Pell, of Rhode Island, reside in the Foreign Office. It is within the recollection of my right hon. Friend that he was particularly concerned about the problem of nuclear silos, and particularly silos on the North Atlantic Ridge. The whole question arises of the emplacement of static weapons on the seabed. This is a very serious subject—rather different from Polaris and Poseidon. My right hon. Friend knows that I am one of those who support the Government's policy on Polaris. The emplacement problem is very different technically and it should be urgently raised, because if there were to be any kind of arms race with emplacements on the seabed, it would have an extremely deleterious effect.
The fourth point which l should like to be raised in New York is that of dumping. I do not think that I need to say anything more than that the proposed dumping of chemical weapons in the Atlantic causes grave suspicion to those of us who have had discussions in this field, and I should have thought that both at New York and, may I say, at Geneva there is a place in the discussions for how to get rid of out-of-date chemical—and I hope not biological—weapons, but, in the light of events in Okinawa,


perhaps I will say biological weapons, too.
Fifthly, as other hon. Members have said, there is the issue of pollution, which cannot be solved by one country. Pollution knows no international frontiers. If, as some of us would like, considerable penalties are to be introduced against the individual skippers of ships, some of us would like to see them embodied in British legislation, but, goodness knows, they should be applied to other countries whose ships come to our shores, because without that it becomes meaningless.
Sixthly, I should like to follow the point of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) about the Atlantic salmon. We have been given assurances by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food that discussions are taking place with the Danish Government on this matter, in respect of the location of the breeding ground off Suukertoppen, near Greenland, but unless something is done within the next two years there will be no Atlantic salmon and it will go the way of the blue whale.
On the blue whale, I recently had the good fortune to be on an official delegation to Japan and to discuss this matter in Japan, and I do not think that there is much doubt that the Japanese have not yet taken effective action in the North Pacific. Soon it will not be a question of 1,000 blue whales; it will be a question of none at all. As a council member of the Fauna and Flora Preservation Society and a passionate conservator, I think that this should be raised with the Japanese Government and at New York.
Finally, I should like to make a reference to the statement of the Minister of Power this afternoon. I was delighted to hear what was said about the Minch, for example, but I think that there is an urgent issue as to the extent to which an individual country exploits what might be called even its own waters, because if we are to help the developing countries, I suggest that if the capital is to be forthcoming we must have certain guarantees from those countries that our stake is safeguarded. I am not at all clear that we can do in our waters things on which we might expect the developing countries of the world to yield. Although many of my right hon. Friends are complete, 100 per cent. inter-

nationalists—my hon. Friend the Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Archer)—for example—in this matter, I must confess a degree of scepticism—I will not say a cynicism—as to the extent to which exploitation of the sea bed can be any kind of panacea to help the developing countries. I do not think that we can escape our obligations by saying that we can do something about the sea bed even if we do little else.
I would ask a few hard-headed questions. First, from where is the incentive and capital to come? Anybody who knows about it knows that in terms of capital these workings are exceedingly expensive, and without normal commercial guarantees I do not see that the capital equipment will be forthcoming. Therefore, when it is hooked to the Pardo proposals and to the idea that developing countries will be greatly helped by the exploration and exploitation of the sea, I must confess to a certain amount of hesitation, and I ask for scrutiny of the question whether this meets up with reality.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Peter Archer: This is not the first occasion on which my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Luard) and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) have placed the House in their debt by inaugurating a debate on this subject and it is not the first occasion, either, on which the informed moderation and respectability of their contributions has modulated in advance the swashbuckling abandon of my own approach to the subject.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), has contributed his profound technological knowledge to the subject. In obedience, Mr. Speaker, to your exhortations to hon. Members to make short speeches, I will delay taking up his challenge on the international aspect, but I will make a reference to it later. I hope now to make a comment on the problems of law and administration which arise.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford said, we have here two separate problems. The first is which area of the sea bed is to be preserved against national exploitation—preserved, in the words of Dr. Pardo, as the common heritage of mankind. Secondly, when we


have decided which area is to be preserved, how are we to administer it? The two problems are inseparable. We cannot decide upon administration without having some idea of which area is to be administered. Conversely, we cannot invite national Governments to renounce their right to appropriation unless they have some idea what is to happen to the area which they have renounced.
I accept that for the Government this is a difficult problem. They cannot proceed faster than the speed at which they can persuade other Governments to accompany them. They cannot proceed in advance of an agreement. If they are too ambitious the whole scheme may fail because no agreement is reached. If they are too modest, such agreement as may be reached will be ineffective.
I appreciate, of course, that this is largely a matter of judgment where we attempt to draw the line, but it is better to err on the side of hope than on the side of despair. There are more examples than one in history of imaginative projects which have succeeded because those Governments which might otherwise have been reluctant to acquiesce have been even more reluctant to expose their natural chauvinism. Even if the worst happened and if we failed to reach an agreement at all—and that hardly bears contemplating—my regard for my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is such that I should like him to go down in history as a man who failed because he was ahead of his time rather than because he was a man who did not measure up to the challenge of the time.
May I comment on the question which the noble Lord raised, the criterion of the area in which natural exploitation is limited? It all began with general acceptance of territorial waters combined with a, limited jurisdiction over the remainder of the belt up to 12 miles. That received the seal of approval with one of the Conventions of 1958. But this was not enough for some of the land-hungry and resource-hungry countries, which say an opportunity of exploiting these possibilities. They wanted the Continental Shelf, and the Convention of 1958, in effect, accorded them a substantial jurisdiction over the Continental Shelf, defined as that area of the ocean floor up to a depth of 200 metres

or beyond that limit to where the depth of the superjacent waters admitting of the exploitation of the natural resources of the said areas
If the criterion had remained at 200 metres, it would have been worrying enough. The territorial waters represent about 3 per cent. of the sea bed, and the 200-metre limit adds another 10 per cent., so already we have renounced the heritage of mankind to an extent of 13 per cent. If we then say that it is possible to appropriate even further than that, up to the possibilities of exploitation, there are two rather worrying aspects.
First, it provides what has been called a gratuitous bonus to the developed countries as against those with less technological know-how. Those in a position to exploit receive an even further acceleration of their standards of living Perhaps even worse, the area which is beyond the possibility of exploitation is diminishing very rapidly. It may very rapidly diminish to the point where it ceases to exist, and then the Convention imposes only one limit. It says that then the State which occupies the adjacent coastline might appropriate up to the median line, until it meets the Continental Shelf of the country opposite.
As I think the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich said in another place earlier this month, this would entail that Pitcairn Island could appropriate an area in the one direction half-way to Cape Horn and in the other half-way to Mexico. I think that the noble Lord this afternoon mentioned the possibilities for an island like St. Helena.
In those circumstances one might have wondered whether already the time had come to call a halt. But now it has been suggested that we might even go further and look at what is called the Continental Rise, which, my noble earlier this month, was recently invented by the University of Columbia.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot refer to speeches in the other place unless they are by Ministers making official statements of Government policy.

Mr. Archer: I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Speaker, and will rapidly return to order.
I hope that it will not appear churlish to make a small complaint about the Report on Marine Science and Technology for which many of us asked repeatedly for a long time. I believe that the diagrammatic profile at the end is a little misleading. The Continental Rise is shown as having a fairly substantial gradient, but the gradient we are dealing with varies between one degree and one-tenth of one degree. To you and me, Mr. Speaker, this would appear to be level, but that is the criterion now suggested as yet a further area of expropriation. We have renounced 13 per cent. of the seabed. The Continental Shelf represents a further 10 per cent. In so far as it is possible to assess the Continental Rise, it is about a further 20 per cent. If that claim were conceded we would have renounced a total of 43 per cent. of the area of the seabed.
As my hon. Friend the Member for oxford said, it appears to be agreed on all sides that there is part of the ocean floor which is not susceptible of national exploitation, but one begins to wonder where it now lies. I hope that when my right hon. Friend replies he will pledge the Government to say on behalf of the people of this country at least that the limit has already been reached and that we shall not give away any more of our children's heritage.
How is this to be administered? There appear to be three major problems requiring some techniques of administration—the question of control of exploitation, the question of defence, and the question of pollution. It would be tempting to follow my hon. Friend on the question of pollution. We had a fearful example only a few weeks ago of 40 million fish in the Rhine being killed by poison from what appears to be one factory in West Germany. Seals are being caught in the Antarctic that contain D.D.T., which must have been poured into the water many thousands of miles away. If ever we needed a reminder that we are members one of another, and that the question can be dealt with only internationally, we have had it in the past few weeks.
My right hon. Friend said something about the matter at Question Time the other day, and we had an Answer from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister

on the subject earlier this week. I will content myself with suggesting that for his vacation reading my right hon. Friend might like to include a pamphlet on ocean pollution by Miss M. Sibthorpe, if he has not already read it. Incidently, I am very grateful to the Committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Morris Bathurst, Q.C., of which Miss Sibthorpe is a distinguished member, appointed to advise the Parliamentary Group for World Government on this question.
I now come to the subject of exploitation. In the debate last year I referred to the possibilities of a bonanza, and was rapidly taken to task by a number of distinguished authorities. In spite of what my hon. Friend said earlier, I am wholly unrepentant. I believe that there are here the possibilities of solving many of our economic problems.
I believe, with Doctor Pardo, that there is the possibility of closing the gap between developed and under-developed countries. I believe, with Lord Ritchie-Calder, that it would be possible in the existing state of knowledge to make enormous inroads on our economic problems. We are not waiting for further technological developments; we already have the knowledge.
I accept that part of the problem is the necessity for capital. Whether that capital is provided publicly or by private companies, it will be necessary to offer some form of security to ensure that some part of the rewards will return to those who provide it. I wholly accept this, and I would not suggest for a moment that the whole of the rewards should be taken away from them. But they must recognise that a great part of the security of which they speak depends on effective international control. One cannot have security in a general free-for-all.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will press for two things here. First, I believe, with Senator Pell, that it is necessary to have enforceable sanctions. I believe in what Senator Pell has called a Seaguard, and to what Miss Sibthorpe has referred to as an inspectorate for pollution.
We are tied to legal concepts associated with freedom of the seas, but even the most technical of us does not seriously believe that freedom of the seas or anywhere else can exist in a power vacuum. We could give meaning to an international offence of stealing or damaging part of the common heritage, though I


accept that the expression "common heritage" does not yet have a clearly defined meaning international law. I was delighted to see that the United Kingdom representative on the Legal Sub-Committee of the United Nations tried to deal with this problem on 16th March this year, when he said that it is not a self-explanatory legal concept, but can be worked out functionally in practice in dealing with the various aspects on which it arises and the idea of an international criminal offence is one that many people accepted as long ago as 1948, when we discussed the Genocide Act.
The second thing that I hope my right hon. Friend will press for is a clear international authority. I agree that it will not do to have "internationally-agreed arrangements". We must have an authority, if ony to control the companies which will, we hope, pursue the exploitation, because a company can these days so easily avoid national control according to where it registers its office and the flag of convenience it adopts. I would be the last to under-rate the contribution of the international companies here, and I would not wish to knock them, but I would like to see them answerable to a clearly defined international authority. Such an international authority should be composed of civil servants at least, who do not owe their allegiance to any specific national authority, who are perhaps products of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research.
There is a great deal more one is tempted to say but I am mindful of your injunction, Mr. Speaker. We are learning a great deal about the administration of legal concepts entailed in international territory. We have discussed the Antarctic and outer space. Now it appears, from the events of the last week, that the possibilities of international territory are bounded only by the limits of space itself. I pay my tribute to the enormous contribution made on this subject by the Government of Malta through their representative, Dr. Pardo. They are continuing to contribute by acting as host this year to a summer school on the question of hydrospace, which will be attended by many distinguished delegates.
But if we cannot solve the problems entailed here on our own planet on the

ocean bed, we shall show that we are unworthy to cope with the problems of an expanding universe.

6.41 p.m.

Viscount Lambton: I am sure that the House is grateful to the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Luard) for introducing this interesting subject. We have also had interesting contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) and from the hon. Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Archer). I think that the main point of the speech of the hon. Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton was his hope that the Foreign Secretary would succeed in achieving the internationalisation of the sea bed, and this tied in very much with what the hon. Member for Oxford made the theme of his speech.
This is an ambition far easier to make than it will be to implement. The first thing I want the Minister to explain is precisely what is to be internationalised, if anything. After all, ore cannot internationalise anything unless one knows what one is internationalising. The great problem, it still seems to me, is who is the actual owner of the sea bed and where the under-sea territories of countries adjacent to it actually end.
If we turn back to the International Continental Shelf Convention, 1958, again and again we come to this sentence in relation to the sovereign rights of exploitation by a coastal State concerning its natural resources on its Continental Shelf:
… the sea-bed and the subsoil of the submarine areas adjacent to the coast but outside the area of the territorial sea, to a depth of 200 metres or, beyond that limit, to where the depth of the superjacent waters admits of the exploitation of the natural resources of the said area.
That, I understand, leaves the position very unclear. As I said earlier, when I asked the hon. Gentleman how he interpreted it, it leaves us in rather a void. I hope, therefore, we shall get an interpretation of the precise ownership of the sea from the Minister.
Will the Minister say where the Continental Shelf and other rights actually are? Does St. Helena technically have the right to develop the sea half-way to Africa and half-way to South America? These questions must be sorted


out if there is to be any effective internationalisation of the sea bed. Having said that, however, we come to further difficulties. To mix a metaphor, in trying to internationalise the sea and confine the limits of countries, we are in a sense bolting the door after the horse has gone, because the North Sea has already been divided among the European countries to their own and our self-interest.

Mr. Luard: The North Sea is all at a depth of less than 200 metres, so, under the definition the hon. Member has mentioned, it is Continental Shelf. The problem arises over areas more than 200 metres in depth, but which may be, on that definition, exploitable. That is where the ambiguity of the phrase arises.

Viscount Lambton: I was coming to that, but I do not think that the division of the North Sea was strictly in relation to its depth, but rather on geographical factors.
I will give other examples which show how dill-cult it is to make legislation now For instance, the United States Government have given rights of development 100 miles off-shore, the Honduras Government no less than 225 miles off-shore and the Australian Government 200 miles off-shore.
Apart from these promises which have been made, one comes to the military use of under-water territories. As far as I know, it is estimated that the United States has already spent about 400 million dollars on submarine tracking devices, and there is no doubt that it is fearful of surprise from under water.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford proposed that there should be, as it were, international blocks allocated to different nations. But suppose some of these blocks came to 300 or 400 miles from the American coast. Can one conceive the American Government being willing to allow a block to one of the satellite countries within easy striking range of the United States and vice versa? The Soviet Government are equally determined to exploit the under-water possibilities of the sea. We are, therefore, faced with far greater difficulties than is immediately supposed.
I come to what is perhaps a more personal point—the value of the properties under the sea. It has not really been

mentioned yet. I understand that the mineral reserves under the sea so far as they are known are variously estimated to be between nine and 170 trillion tons. Some of the nodules found have up to 57 per cent. manganese and a high iron and copper content. The wealth there is so great and so undeveloped that we can be certain that other nations apart from ourselves will want to develop it; and it is likely that there will be scant consideration for internationalisation on an idealistic mould as proposed by the hon. Member for Oxford.
The question which arises out of the debate is what is Her Majesty's Government doing in preparing us to take advantage of this great opportunity of untapped mineral reserves which lies adjacent to our own waters and in areas and waters adjacent to, even in the most strictly limited sense, territories of our dependancies and colonies? What action have the Government taken? This country has been left totally behind in the space race and I sincerely hope that it will not be left behind in the under-water race.
I was rather surprised this afternoon when the Minister of Power, having been asked whether he had consulted the National Environment Research Council about developments in the Irish and North Sea, replied that he had not done so. This is rather curious and it makes one wonder whether there is a cohesive policy being conceived by the Government for this development.
The fact remains that this is the greatest untapped region of reserves in the world. As the use of minerals grows, so will their shortage increase. I hope that the Government are preparing to take this opportunity and not to be left behind. I ask the Minister to elucidate a little further the precise points of supposed ownership.

6.50 p.m.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Mr. Frederick Mulley): I should like to follow the noble Lord the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Viscount Lambton) and other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Luard) both on his good fortune in the Ballot, which has resulted in this debate being held at a reasonable hour, and on raising what a short but interesting debate has shown to be an extremely


important subject. Certainly, Her Majesty's Government regard it as an extremely important subject and one of enormous potential not only for ourselves, but for the development of world technology.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) asked whether we supported the Malta initiative. We have consistently supported that initiative since it was put to the General Assembly of the United Nations in December, 1967, and followed by the ad hoc committee of 35 States, of which we have been a member. We can claim to have taken an active and constructive part in the work of that committee since it was set up. As the House knows, there was an important sitting of the committee last August in Rio de Janeiro and we hope to make substantial further progress when the committee meets again in New York on 11th August, in a few weeks.
One would be over-optimistic to expect rapid progress, because of the nature of the problems with which we have to grapple. Both the noble lord and my hon. Friend the Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Archer) indicated the nature of the difficulties we have to face. There is first the problem of defining the area and then the problem of agreeing an international régime. While I agree that these are difficult, in a moderate way I share the optimism of my hon. Friend the Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton and my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford in thinking that these problems can and must be worked out in a proper international way.
I want, first, to make clear Her Majesty's Government's aims in these negotiations. We want to promote the well-balanced development of the sea bed. Already about 17 per cent. of the world's oil comes from the Continental Shelf. I understand that drilling may soon be technically possible beyond the 200-metre depth.
As several hon. Members have said, the sea bed is vital to our defence interests. We have been and still are a maritime nation and we are totally dedicated to the preservation of the freedom of the sea. Our general political interest is to promote the principle of the rule of law in international dealings and to preserve the sea bed for peaceful use. Not only is

it in our general interest to take a leading part in these international discussions, but we have done so.
I should like to point out the great difficulty of translating what are admirable general propositions into real international conventions, international agencies, and so forth. We all subscribe—I certainly do—to the proposition that the sea bed should be reserved for peaceful uses, but when one gets down to trying to define what is a peaceful use, one has to say whether cables used by military organisations for messages are peaceful or non-peaceful and what is the deep-sea bed and where national limits end and international limits begin. This, then, becomes an extremely difficult question.
My hon. Friend was a little hard when he said that he did not want to hear about general propositions of a vague character. I noted several, which I wanted to put to him, in the concluding and moving remarks of his own speech.
After all, the position of developing countries, and so on, is very important and I hope that he will not be offended if I state our criteria. We have not approached these questions from any kind of rigid position. This is an extremely important but also an extremely new field of international negotiation, and it will be difficult to get the only kind of con-census that will make an international convention possible.
Understandably, most if not all countries approach all these problems from the point of view of their own national interest, which is what one would expect. There is an enormous difference between the attitude of countries which are landlocked, which have no access to the sea, and those which have a large Continental Shelf. There are other countries which have access to the sea but no continental shelf. They all, naturally, take different views of the important questions which the noble Lord posed.
I want to make it quite clear that we accept that there is an area of the sea beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. We accept the concept of the common heritage of mankind, and this concept was acknowledged at the recent Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conference.
But what is extremely difficult is to get international agreement about where national boundaries should end and


international boundaries begin. We favour the establishment of an international régime governing the peaceful exploration and exploitation of that area which is international, beyond national jurisdiction, as soon as practicable. While there are substantial problems about defining where the continental shelf ends, and so on, they can be overcome.
I understand that the continental margin is only about 20 per cent. of the total sea area, so that, while this is a substantial problem, it is not as large as the noble Lord suggested.

Viscount Lambton: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will define the meaning of the sentence
where the depth of the superjacent waters admits of the exploitation of the natural resources of the said areas."?

Mr. Mulley: I should be happy to do that if I thought that it was within my competence. This issue has been before the International Court of Justice. In a recent case, it was made clear that in the opinion of the International Court the rights of States stem ab initio from the extension of the land mass under the sea. This is an extremely complex, difficult and controversial issue.
This is one of the difficulties which must be resolved and one of the reasons why we have not made the progress which we should. Some line must be drawn which will be internationally acceptable. We cannot go beyond that. We are carefully studying the various points of view, such as that of the International Court, and we must try to get an international consensus. We do not favour any concept of free for all.
I disagree with the noble Lord when he says that we should be preparing ourselves to "enter the race". The last thing we want is a kind of colonial race under the sea, with people rushing to grab this area or that.

Mr. Archer: When my right hen. Friend says that the continental margin amounts to 20 per cent. of the sea floor, will he make it clear that that entails a welcome exclusion of the Continental Rise, which is a further 20 per cent?

Mr. Mulley: I should like to go into more detail on these conflicting questions, but I am very conscious of the time and

I think that it is the broad desire of the House to discuss the main issue in the forthcoming New York meetings. I wanted to tell the House the principles which we have already put to the committee and shall try to get accepted by it at that meeting.
We accept that there is an area of the sea beyond national jurisdiction and that in that international area we favour the establishment of an international régime to govern the peaceful exploration and exploitation of that area. I note what my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford said about registration not being sufficient and we would certainly envisage a system of licences. We would expect that there would be payment of royalties, some international supervision, provision for settling disputes and machinery for protecting the sea bed against pollution.
Apart from the other pollution problems, there would be possibilities of pollution as one extended exploration and exploitation. It is also important to preserve the access to the seabed for proper scientific research. This is our approach and we are convinced that the régime must be acceptable to all, or a large majority of, the members of the United Nations. Therefore, it must be equitable, it must offer a balance of advantage to all States, including the landlocked States.
Because of the way in which it has been presented by Malta and the other countries—we support this concept—it must take special account of the interests of the developing countries. At the same time, I endorse the warning of my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) that it would take an enormous amount of capital to develop these resources and that it would he a mistake for anyone to feel that there is a gold mine sitting on the seabed for someone to plunder.
If the arrangements are so conceived as to put a prohibitive price on the exploitation of these resources, that would be detrimental to the development of our natural resources and, in the long run, to the interests of the developing countries, too. This régime must clearly provide a firm basis for exploration, exploitation and scientific research. It should impose as few restrictions as possible. It must protect the seabed resources from pollution and contain effective provision


for settling disputes. We agree very much about the importance of the fishing problems mentioned by the hon. Member for Wavertree, but we do not feel that these negotiations are the best way to deal with them.
Equally, on the broader question of pollution of the sea, as I said at Question Time, earlier this week, we feel that the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organisation, the specialist agency of the United Nations, is best placed to continue the discussion in this field. I also mentioned that we have recently succeeded in getting, largely on Her Majesty's Government's initiative, an agreement to improve matters within our own North Sea area. This agreement will become effective next month. So we are making progress, but it is essentially slow and difficult progress because of the nature of the problems.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian mentioned arms control and disarmament. We believe that this can and, perhaps, would best be dealt with separately from the peaceful exploitation and exploration and that the Disarmament Committee in Geneva is the more appropriate venue. This matter has been before that committee, I stated Her Majesty's Government's position there, and there are two rival draft treaties before the committee—one from the Soviet Union, which, broadly, seeks to ban all military activities on the sea bed, and one by the United States which is concerned to ban the emplacement or fixing of nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction on the sea bed, to complete, as they put it, a nuclear ban already achieved in outer space and in Antarctica.
We believe that one could find a situation between the Soviet and the American positions. I have made it clear that we could not entertain any arrangements which would prohibit the antisubmarine devices which are essential for our self-defence. At the same time, while supporting the banning of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction, we are studying and would be favourably disposed towards any other bans which could be effective on the sea bed, but which would not make our proper warning, intelligence and antisubmarine systems ineffective.
Therefore, I hope that, during the coming weeks even, we may make dramatic progress in arms control. Although it is not without difficulty, it is a rather simpler problem than the whole concept of devising an international agency, with licensing, and so on, for the exploration and exploitation of all the immense resources of the sea bed.
At the same time, there is already, within the Geneva discussions the problem of definitions. The Soviet draft treaty talks about 12 miles from the coast, the rest being subject to the international ban; the United States goes further and talks about the international zone starting three miles from national territories. Even in the relatively more simple arms control area, therefore, there is still a problem in defining the area of the ban. I have made it clear, and I think that it is accepted, that whatever area may be designated as part of the arms control arrangement, this should not be regarded as a precedent, either for law of the sea discussions or for this international committee in New York. Obviously, from a disarmament and an arms control point of view the larger the area over which the ban on weapons can be the better.
I hope that this has given the House an indication of the objectives that the Government have in these very important but fairly difficult negotiations. Out first aim must be to secure agreement on the principles. This may be rather tiresome, but unless we can get international agreement on the principles on which a new régime should be established we cannot make a profitable advance towards that régime itself. So, our aim is to get agreement on the principles and then to get the establishment of a régime through international agreement which will, I hope, meet the desires and ambitions of my hon. Friend, to whom we are indebted for introducing this subject today.

Mr. Speaker: I remind the House of the scope of the debate on Second Reading of the Bill. Any questions of administrative policy can be raised which are implied in or covered by the grant of Supply, but questions of taxation and legislation cannot be raised.
I remind the House, too, that this is the third of many debates to be held throughout the night and that reasonably brief speeches will help.

Orders of the Day — CRIME

7.10 p.m.

Mr. Mark Carlisle: I am grateful for the opportunity I have of raising the question of the substantial increase which has occurred during the last 12 months in the rate of crime. I will try to be reasonably brief, Mr. Speaker, but you will realise that the House does not get many opportunities to discuss the problems of crime. This is because the Reports of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and of the Chief Inspector of Constabulary are published shortly before the House rises for the Summer Recess. The criminal statistics may or may not be out at that time. The Opposition have probably used all, or nearly all, of their Supply Days. Therefore, there is little Parliamentary opportunity to raise the problems of crime.
Although we had a short debate in February of this year on a Motion moved by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar), and although I was able to raise the question of police manpower in January, 1968 in the debate on the Winter Supplementary Estimates, I believe that the last time that crime as such was debated was on a Motion moved by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) as long ago as 8th August, 1966. Yet their is no doubt that crime is a major social problem at this time and is a matter of great concern to the people.
I do not wish to delay or bore the House by reciting many statistics, but I must quote some figures. The most recent Report of the Chief Inspector of Constabulary shows that in 1968 crime rose by as much as 8·54 per cent. over the previous year and that for the first time in living memory more than 1 million indictable crimes were committed. These statistics exclude the Metropolitan area; they are for the rest of the country, excluding London.
A closer study of the figures shows that violence is up by 11¼ per cent. and that robbery is up by nearly 14 per cent. The alarming thing about the figures is that they come after a year—1967—when the rate of increase in crime had fallen to 1·68 per cent. and when it looked for the first time as if the battle against crime was being won.
I do not have to remind the hon. Members for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) and Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) that the trend shown by the figures I have quoted for the increase in crime last year is still continuing, because a report last week by the Chief Constable of the Manchester and Salford Combined Police Force shows that in the first six months of this year compared with the same period in 1968 crime in that city had risen by 13·9 per cent. and crimes of violence had risen by 40 per cent.
Although the position in the Metropolitan area is slightly better, I do not believe that it gives ground for great confidence. The Report of the Commissioner for 1968 shows that there were over ¼ million indictable crimes in the Metropolitan area. Whereas the actual increase over 1967 is only 0·8 per cent. as against that for the rest of the country of more than 8 per cent., the figure of 0·8 per cent. must be viewed in light of the fact that in 1967 there had been a reduction in crime of just over 3 per cent. in the London area.
So in the Provinces the increase seems to be flattening out as a violent and severe one. In London, although crime had decreased, it is now, although perhaps only marginally, starting to increase again.
I welcome the fact that in the Metropolitan area robbery, perhaps one of the most serious crimes, decreased by as much as 5 per cent. over the previous year.
If we look at the figures disclosed, we must also look at the other side and realise that at the same time the use of firearms has risen by about 17 per cent.
At the same time as these mounting figures have occurred, despite the efforts of the police, the rate of detection still remain abysmally low—in London under 25 per cent., one in four of all offences committed, and in the rest of the country well under 50 per cent., at which level it has been since the beginning of the 1960s. It is a sombre picture. It is a matter of concern to the people. It is a, if not the, major social problem facing us.
It is an interesting but often a fruitless exercise to discuss the causes of crime. Every hon. Member has his own views


about the causes. They are not limited to Britain. The increase in crime is seen in other countries, as is the increase in violence. I have always believed that the increase in crime is, in part, a by-product of our very affluence, a by-product of materialism, that it is caused by the greater opportunities that affluence brings for crime, by society's greater mobility and, perhaps most of all, by society's greater impersonality. In part it is caused, obviously, by the breakdown of the many institutions which used to be the main traditional bulwarks against crime and by our failure as a society to put other institutions in their place.
These are long-term problems which are susceptible of solution only by long-term methods. As the Chief Inspector of Constabulary says, a change of attitude is required. I believe that the volume of crime is in itself a major cause of the increase in crime. Because people are getting away with crime to the extent I have shown, because of the amount of undetected crime, because crime is now thought to be worth the candle, we have this great increase. I believe that we have come to the stage that whereas before we could always say with certainty that crime did not pay, we find today that for a growing number of people crime not only pays but pays extremely handsomely.
When one paints that picture, there will be those who say that we should look at the other side of the coin and ask whether our punishments are right. Speaking purely for myself, I do not share that view. I believe that our system of punishment is right at this moment. The House should face the fact that as a result of the increase in violence and in crime there is a demand for such things as a return of capital punishment. I do not believe that that would meet the problem.
If one looks at the figures, although clearly murder has increased, when we compare the figures since the operation of the Homicide Act, 1957, we find that murder has increased very little in comparison to the over-100 per cent. increase in crime which has occurred during that time. The carrying of firearms has, however, increased.
I would like the Under-Secretary to tell us the view of the Government with regard to the long-term sentence and the

long-term prisoner. I have no doubt that the abolitionist has to accept that with the present rate of crime and the rate of violence that we see today prison sentences will, as, I believe, they are doing, inevitably become longer. It seems to me that the duty of the Government is to provide an adequate range of punishments for the courts and to provide also adequate institutions in which those sentences can be humanely served.
I wonder whether the Under-Secretary can say what is happening with regard to the maximum security prisons. Are the Government satisfied with what is happening, or have they rejected the Mountbatten proposal, accepted the proposal of the Radzinowicz Committee and yet thrown out an integral part of that proposal concerning maximum perimeter security? If we are in the middle of an era in which long prison sentences not only are expected by society to be passed but are necessary to be passed, we must see that we have in our prisons the means whereby those sentences can be properly carried out.
I believe that there is also something else which in the short term can be done by the Government about the crime problem, and I believe that it is in the short-term solution that the Government are open to criticism for having failed in their duty. I refer to the likelihood or the certainty of arrest and conviction. I have no doubt that the only real deterrent to crime is the likelihood of arrest and the certainty of detection. People do not commit crimes with policemen standing at their shoulders.
In the forefront of the battle against crime are the police forces. I believe that an up-to-strength and adequately equipped police force is the greatest safeguard of the citizen. When we look at the present picture, however, we find that although the equipment of the police is improving they are woefully short in numbers. I regret that. what I believe was the misguided policy of the Government in deliberately limiting recruitment to the police has made the position worse than it need necessarily have been.
This is not a question of speaking merely with hindsight. As I mentioned at the outset, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity of raising the question of police manpower in the Winter Supplementary Estimates debate


in January 1968. Those who took part in that debate from these benches warned the Government what would happen if they continued with the policy of implementing limitations of recruitment to the police. It is certainly not with pleasure that one finds that one's warnings have proved to be correct.
To take again the forces outside London, whereas in 1967 the strength of the police increased by 3,004, in the following year, far from there being an equivalent increase there was a decrease in the number of men in the provincial police forces. From the figure of 3,004-plus for 1967 we came to a total loss of 237 in 1968. I find it no wonder that with what one might feel was remarkable restraint and understatement, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary is constrained to say in his Report:
The second disappointment was that the substantial increase in police strength which we have become accustomed to in the past few years did not take place in 1968.
The position today is that the police forces throughout the country are still 11,000 men short.
In the Metropolitan area, as in the figures of crime, we find a situation which is somewhat better but is still certainly not one on which anyone can afford to be complacent. In 1968 the number in the police force went up by 444, but that must be set in contrast against the previous year when the number went up by over 800. One finds from the figures that recruitment to the Metropolitan Police went down during 1968 and that only the fact that there was less wastage made a net increase in the numbers.
The position, therefore, is that in the provincial forces there is a deficiency of 11,000 in the number of the police. In the Metropolitan force there is a deficiency of over 20 per cent., or over 5,000. We find that the policies of the Government in screwing the tap as they did at the beginning of 1968, when recruitment to the police was flowing freely, have to a substantial degree caused the position that now exists.
The maintenance of law and order is one of the main tasks of any Government. In limiting recruitment to the police they have to that degree fallen down on that duty. No one would attempt to be foolish enough to blame

the Government for crime as such. Crime grows in society and in environment, which Governments may or may not have something to do with creating. Where, however, I believe that the country will blame the Government is in deliberately choosing to limit the growth of security in the citizen's main arm of protection and his main safeguard against crime, namely, the police. The right of a law-abiding citizen to go his way in safety is one of the rights which any individual looks for from the Government of the day.
I now turn briefly—I will be brief on these remaining matters, and will cut short much of what I intended to say—to the other half of the problem, and that is the certainty of conviction. This is equally important with the likelihood or certainty of arrest. I am at times told that in our clear determination to safeguard the innocent from wrongful conviction, we have so balanced our laws of criminal evidence that we are forgetting that it is equally important for society that the guilty should be rightly convicted.
I am not for a moment asking today for legislation on this matter, and I appreciate that I should be out of order if I were to do so; but I think it is worth comment that in our rules of evidence, such matters as Judges' Rules on the investigation of crime, particularly our rules of evidence within the courts, we are still, nearly in the 1970s, being guided and controlled by rules laid down at the end of the last century, and really one has got to question and raise as a serious subject of debate whether such rules, as, for example, those about the silence of the accused in court, should necessarily be continued in their present form. One has to ask the question whether it is necessary to continue with the administrative Judges' Rules which we have at the moment, and whether, rather than succeeding in safeguarding the innocent, they are in fact being used as a means of manipulation by the guilty to avoid the bringing home of their guilt.
I hope that I have not, Mr. Speaker, trespassed too far against your request that one should not speak at too great length since there are many others who wish to speak. I finish by reiterating what I said at the beginning, that crime is the major social problem. It is one


which concerns intimately the lives of many individual people. It is a matter which gives them great concern, and it is a matter upon which both sides of this House should press the Home Office to take whatever measures it can to see that the war against crime is won.

7.32 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) upon introducing this subject, because everyone will agree that, whether we do or do not blame the Government for the rise in crime, there is a rise in crime, and there must be a cause for it.
I want to upset, perhaps, several hon. Members here by saying that I think that all of us present, with the exception of Mr. Speaker, are in part responsible for this rise in crime. I start by bringing in all aspects of our administration. The Under-Secretary of State asked, was I going to get at the police, and I said to him, "Yes", because I think that they are in part responsible for the increase in crime. I will explain why in a moment.
I think that all the authorities generally, the Government, Ministers, perhaps the Home Secretary and his Department particularly, are in part responsible for the increase in crime. I do not say that they are deliberately and with malice aforethought; I do not say that they are consciously responsible for the rise in crime; nevertheless, they are responsible in part.
I start from the premise that if a man commits a petty crime and is allowed to get away with it then he is likely to progress to the next stage in crime, to feel that if he can get away with it it probably means, as the hon. Member for Runcorn said, that crime will pay. The hon. Member is quite right. I want to show that it does pay and is being made to pay by the acquiescence of authority, in general, if I may so call it loosely.
This honourable House—except you, Mr. Speaker—introduces so many rules, regulations and Bills which become Acts of Parliament, when we know that they cannot be enforced—and many are not being enforced. Let me illustrate. There are about 2,000 rules and regulations which affect motorists, and 1,999 of them are never enforced. By a process of what

I may term the sorting out of the wheat from the chaff there is enforcement against some people and not others, and thus the law is brought into disrepute.
For instance, I took up with the Home Secretary the fact—and it is a fact—that he and his official cars park in Whitehall beside the Cenotaph on a yellow band. That is quite illegal. They stop there for more than 20 or 25 minutes. Just around the corner are proper parking facilities, and, indeed, right at the back of the Home Office is their own parking ground. Of course, no one troubles the Home Secretary or his staff or civil servants; wardens come along, police come along, but they take no action. But if Mr. Smith, or Mr. Brown, or Mr. Black comes along he immediately is plastered with a ticket.
I could quote a number of illustrations of what one might term, the law for the rich or the law for those who can get away with it, and the law for those who cannot get away with it. Recently, there was a complaint about noise being made at a party. There were 15 ratepayers and taxpayers who complained to the police; there were 15 complaints. Did the police take any action? Not at all. It happened that they knew that there were prominent personages at the party, and even although it went on until 2 or 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning and upset people the police admitted they took no action.
I had a poor coloured man in my constituency who was having a party for his children and the police got an anonymous telephone call, a tip off, that another coloured man was having a party and that it might be "a drunk party." They did not take the trouble to find out, first of all, what the party was. They were off at once. They sent round the speed cops and hundreds of police and the place was forcibly entered into, and then they found it was not "a drunk party", but was a poor children's party. At one time Lady Diana Cooper was also raided and the Assistant Commissioner of Police went along and apologised to her. He does not go along to the poor coloured chap and apologise to him.
The point I am trying to make is that we find that there is a differential in how, in some instances, the law is enforced, and how in other instances, it is not enforced against people.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elysian Morgan): I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. He appreciates he did not give me notice of the specific cases that he is raising, but he has raised them already with the Home Office. Would he not admit that he has had the fullest and most detailed, specific explanation in each case?

Mr. Lewis: No. I most certainly do not. That is why I am raising these questions. I do not agree that the police can investigate the police and I will certainly go into this in more detail.
However, I was going on to say that all authorities are partly responsible and I was illustrating that by quoting the 2,000 regulations affecting motorists. When one tries to see what is happening one finds that the police do enforce the law against what I may term the legitimate motorist who has done something a little illegal—for instance, a war disabled ex-Serviceman who, as recently happened, stopped on a yellow band for two or three minutes while he went to pay money into the bank. He was given a ticket. Another man can go along and, because he happens to be a representative of a big organisation, he is allowed to get away with it. I could quote a number of instances.
I want to explain what happens when a petty criminal knows he can get away with it. We had recently the question of radio and television licence evaders. The Government know that the B.B.C. is being milked of £10 million on television and radio licences, but no remedial action is taken. Occasionally, someone is caught and summoned. He may perhaps pay a £5 fine. The evasion of road fund licences accounts for even more millions of pounds than the evasion of radio and television licences. I can say quite definitely that crime does pay.
If you and I, Mr. Speaker—I am sure that you would never do such a thing—wished to, we could avoid paying for a radio and television licence and a road fund licence. The chances of being caught are 1,000 to 1. If one was caught, after 18 months or two years, one might be taken to court and might have to pay a £5 or a £10 fine, but the "wide boys" and petty criminals know that they do not have to pay it, so they do not pay it.
There is now a sum of £3½ million outstanding in fines. After three or four years a man may be fined again, and if he does not pay the police give up. There is no point in fining people if they will not pay. They cannot be put into prison. I have been told by senior police officials that the police do not trouble to prosecute; it is not worth the time and effort involved.
We are partly responsible for this because we maintain obsolete laws which cannot be enforced. Sunday trading is another example. Every day of the week cases are reported to the police, but no action is taken because, if they did so, there would be no time for anything else.
There are 2,000 rules and regulations for motorists, yet when one asks how many times action has been taken to enforce them, the answer is that there are no records. Possibly it never happens. I do not know when the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) was last stopped by the police and asked to show his insurance certificate or his road fund licence, or had his tyres and his headlamps inspected. These laws are in complete contempt. Petty criminals say, "We know that we can get away with it, so why should we worry?"
The main reason for the shortage of police is that they are "fed up" with the type of work which they have to do. The way to prevent crime is to change the whole aspect of the police force and to split it up into three, or perhaps more, sections. One section would be concerned with crime detection and report. That could be in three categories, the very serious, the not so serious and the petty. There could be a department for the enforcement of the law, and a department for crime prevention and advice in the prevention of crime, so that the police could say to a person, "If you are not careful, you will find yourself in hot water, because you are committing a petty crime. We give you fair warning that if this continues action might follow."
I would take road traffic offences away from the police and set up a road traffic enforcement department in which there would be traffic wardens and traffic control police, and which could perhaps be manned by ex-police officers who are too old for the more serious job of crime


prevention. In this way there could be a better and more highly skilled police force.
I will suggest a way to find the money to do this. There are two or three profitable private enterprise security firms. The members of these firms wear uniforms very like those worn by the police and they carry arms, which is against the law, and the police know this. They park on yellow band areas. They are above the law. This job could be done by a police department which could be well paid by the private firms, and the extra money could be employed in paying a good wage to encourage recruitment to the police force.
I was surprised that the hon. Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle), who is a lawyer, did not refer to the stage when the culprits are arrested and have to be dealt with. We have been told in recent months about restrictive practices in the trade union movement, and it has been said that there should be productivity agreements. I should like to see productivity agreements in the law courts. If lawyers were paid by results, cases which now take three or four years would be more speedily settled. If a lawyer were unscrupulous—and I am not suggesting that a ay lawyer is—it might possibly pay him to keep a case going longer than necessary because he gets refreshers. Plumbers, bricklayers and carpenters are not paid extra because they keep a job going longer. If they were paid refreshers, they would be "refreshing" themselves every day of the week. There should be a method of speeding up the activity of the courts.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: Why not spin a coin?

Mr. Lewis: The right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone possibly would decide it on that basis, but spinning a coin is not the fairest way of going about matters. Is it fair to keep a man waiting five years before he knows whether he is or is not being taken to court? [Laughter.] The hon. Member laughs, but there is an hon. Member in the House at the moment who has had that hanging over him for five years. I do not think that that is a laughing matter.
It is disgusting to think that a case can be pending for five years. The excuse that is put up for the delay is that

it is complicated and difficult and that there are not enough courts or enough judges to deal with the number of cases. Meantime, people are kept waiting. It seems strange to think that we in Britain are considered to have the best justice in the world. I hope that we shall get to the stage of speeding up the whole process of the administration of justice in the courts.
Lastly, I would make a plea that when people in high legal office commit misdemeanours, whether of a serious or minor nature, they should be treated alike when action is taken against them. One reads so often of cases in which a prominent judge or J.P. does something wrong and the Lord Chancellor says that he will take no action. Yet Mrs. Brown, or whatever her name is, in Portsmouth does something which may or may not be so serious, and she is hardly in the prison before she receives a letter saying that she should resign her office as a justice of the peace.
I do not see why there should be this differentiation, but it does happen and is happening. This is why people say that it seems strange that if a person is rich, or is somebody particular, he can get away with it. That is the situation at the moment. There are people who are getting away with it, and they can get away with it. We in this House are partly responsible because we bring in so many rules and regulations which are not enforceable. A few scapegoats are picked upon, the law is brought to bear, and the real culprits get away.

7.54 p.m.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: I wish to turn my attention to one aspect of the rise in crime, a matter which concerns me very much indeed, and which I know concerns many of my constituents. It is the alarming rise in robberies in which firearms are used. The use of firearms too often results in dead or wounded people being left behind at the scene of a crime. Firearms carried by a thief turn him from a common thief into a gangster, with all that implies.
Since my constituency is in the Greater London area, I will contain my remarks to what is set out in the 1968 Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. I refer, in particular, to his remarks on firearms, and I should like to quote one or two passages from his


Report since they are worthy of our close attention. He says, on page 53:
Over one-seventh of all robberies and assaults with intent to rob were carried out with the aid of firearms…
He is, of course, dealing with the London area.
There was a rise of 17 per cent. in the number of indictable crimes in whch firearms were used but in the case of robberies or assaults with intent to rob, the increase was 31 per cent.
He adds:
The increase is disturbing and shows that, despite efforts to curb the sale of weapons, there are still plenty available for criminal use.
How right he is. Guns can be purchased without very much difficulty. It guns can be purchased in that way, individual freedom is once more endangered and the situation could easily flow over into a rash of violence such as is now happening in America, a circumstance which, fortunately, we have kept out of this country.
The hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) said that he thought the security companies should be taken over by the police. I shall not pursue that argument, but I know a little about security companies and, personally, think they are filling a badly-needed rôle in protecting, in particular, cash.
It is interesting to see how those companies have moved openly into the use of armoured vehicles. This is something industry might well have thought about, but did not. It is equally interesting to see that the armour which is being provided is at present considered to be suitable for protection against shotguns. At least one security company to which I have spoken, is thinking of even heavier armament to cope with pistols and rifles. It is extraordinary that we can talk about these things in our country, but we must grasp that the gunman in crime is a reality. The gunman in crime means that, if he is to secure his ends, heavier weapons will be used.
Having mentioned the security companies. I am glad to see that banks are becoming conscious that they, too, have a responsibility to their employees. We have seen the metal grilles in banks to protect their staff when paying out money and most of their cash is carried in armoured vehicles. After all, in London

the theft bill amounts to £22 million a year, which is big business by any standards.
I want now to come to the position of post offices and sub-post offices. A sub-postmaster told me recently that the closing of banks at the weekends has meant that sub-post offices are carrying much larger quantities of cash than ever before in their history. With the increase in the amount of cash held in post offices comes an increase in the danger to people who set out to serve the public.
I look upon those who serve in a post office as servants of the State and of the public and demanding of our special attention. Yet, so far, they have been provided with an almost risible amount of money to protect their offices—certainly, a sum nowhere near large enough to give them security for which they have a right to ask. We should consider whether sufficient protection is being given to these people.
I quote the Commissioner once again, since he touches on this point. He says:
 Young criminals, whose highest ambition was to snatch a purse in the market place, now without hesitation attack elderly sub-postmistresses and ordinary men and women, many so unprepared, taking money to and from the banks.
He went on to say that the rise in the proportion of these offences in which firearms were used or thought to be used was 14·6 per cent. in 1968. I suspect that in view of the increasing sums of cash being held, this figure may well rise even more. It will be a great tragedy if we have to wait for an elderly sub-postmistress to be gunned down before we take the matter seriously and spend the money required.
Surely we must now realise that, at least in the matter of firearms, the punishment no longer deters the criminal. There has been a 31 per cent. rise in the use of firearms in robberies in London. Of the £22 million lost by theft, only 10·5 per cent. of that total of property was recovered. We must face the fact that crime is paying and that it is paying more if the criminal carries a gun.
It forces me to ask the question which was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle): are our sentences now stiff enough to deter? Is a £200 fine or six months' imprisonment a sufficiently high penalty for having a machine gun on one's premises? Is 14


years in prison really enough for the man who carries a gun during a robbery, presumably with intent to wound? Are we protecting the servants of the State properly, and, in particular, those for whom we are most responsible, like sub-postmistresses and sub-postmasters and those who work in the Post Office proper?
Finally, are we spending enough on the detection and prevention of crime? I hope that the Minister will deal with these points.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Alfred Morris: The hon. Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) ranged over a wide area in introducing this debate. Hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House will feel indebted to him for providing this opportunity to discuss a matter of such considerable importance. The hon. Gentleman referred to the city of Manchester and to the recent publicity there has been about the growth in crime there, comparing current statistics with those of earlier years. In New York, they say that if anyone is murdered in Central Park after 6 p.m. he has committed suicide because he was crazy to go there at that time. Notwithstanding all the recent publicity, it is not like that in Manchester.
The hon. Member readily appreciates that we must get the whole question of crime statistics into some perspective. What has happened in Manchester in recent months is extremely serious and merits very careful attention by the House. Judge Edward Steel, speaking in the Manchester Crown Court on 4th July, said that 689 cases involving crimes of violence had been committed in Manchester and Salford during the first five months of this year. That was 50 per cent. more than for the same period last year. Moreover, Judge Steel's statement anticipated the statistics which were published for Manchester and Salford last week.
The statement made in the Manchester Crown Court on 4th July was not the only one to have been made by judges in the city recently. Another judge said that the increase in crimes of violence was
… bringing disgrace to Manchester.
And another judge has said:

It is a terrible indictment of our times that people are not allowed to walk in the centre of the city without being attacked and attempts made to rob them.
I want to express in this debate the genuine concern of people in Manchester about the increase in the incidence of crimes of violence. I also want to question why we should be faced with this substantial increase. There are those who regard the principal reason as being that the Manchester and Salford constabulary is below strength. Recently, some of my hon. Friends representing the City of Manchester, and myself, had a meeting at the Home Office with the Under-Secretary to discuss this and other possible causes for the increase in crimes of violence.
It is palpably wrong that the police force in Manchester and Salford should be below its permitted strength. I recognise that there are problems in recruiting and retaining policemen. It is not an easy job, especially when crimes of violence are increasing. Other forms of employment are increasingly more attractive. I am glad to see that we have now been joined by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths), who takes a close interest in these matters on behalf of the Police Federation. He will be interested to know that I am asking whether the increase in crimes of violence is partly due to the difficulty in recruiting and retaining policemen.
I am prepared to defend increases in public expenditure, if necessary, to bring the Manchester and Salford police force up to strength and to bring other constabularies in the country up to strength. I want it to be demonstrated that they are staffed by people who feel that their salaries and conditions of employment are acceptable. There are, of course, those who are always calling for reductions in public expenditure. On a number of occasions hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite attack increases in public expenditure, yet ask for more and more public expenditure in their own constituencies.
I am prepared to stand up and be counted as someone in favour of increasing public expenditure if that is needed to bring our police forces up to strength and to see that the courageous men who serve in these forces have satisfactory conditions of employment. This is but one of


the possible reasons for the recent increase in crimes of violence.
Others say that the crime detection rate has improved. There has certainly been an increase in the mobility and efficiency of our police forces, which many of us feel should be recognised and rewarded. A Parliamentary Answer given by the Home Office to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose), is a remarkable tribute to the increased efficiency of the Manchester and Salford force. Anyone who studies the statistics in that reply would find that there has been a marked increase in the efficiency of the force. I hope that my hon. Friend in reply will say something about the increase in the rate of crime detection in recent years.
Again, there are those, including a psychiatrist who recently spoke about the problem in Manchester, who say that the increase in crime is because of the clubs in that swinging city which are open at all hours. The psychiatrist pointed out that this is not conducive to good living and that we should keep a more careful watch on the activities of clubs, especially in the centre of Manchester. But not all crimes committed in Manchester are committed by Mancunians. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks), among others, has pointed out to the Home Office that we should take account of that fact.
Magistrates, for their part, have said that lack of parental control is an important factor and that parents should seriously consider the consequences of ignoring their responsibilities. We have heard, and seen in the Manchester Press, criticisms of the permissive society, or the civilised society, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer called it last week-end. But I am concerned about another possible cause which is of concern both to criminologists and sociologists. I refer to the problem of anonymity. In recent years Manchester has had its heart torn out. Slum clearance has gone on at a very rapid rate. Indeed, one would look far to find a city in Britain where slum clearance has taken place at a faster rate.
I suggest, without any political bias—for it is not an opinion but a fact—that slum clearance and house building was

better under the former Labour-controlled city council than under a Conservative-controlled city council. Even so, there has been a rapid increase in housing development in recent years.
Some people feel that ripping up the roots of whole communities and seeking to transplant them in other parts of the conurbation is bound to create social problems of the kind that we are now witnessing in Manchester.
Wythenshawe, which I represent, has been called the first new town in this country. It is a place where people from the central and older parts of Manchester have come to live. It is populated in large part by younger families, and there are many thousands of teenagers. I have pressed national and local authorities again and again to improve social amenities for young people in the new areas of Manchester. For we are bound to have crime problems if housing development is out of pace with the provision of social amenities. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government has given loan sanction for the building of the Wythenshawe Leisure Centre at a cost of £1,350,000. There has been considerable improvement recently in the provision of social amenities in the new areas of Manchester and I hope that this trend will continue.
My hon. Friend will perform a very useful task if he will consult other Departments of State and the local authorities about the deeper social problem which, as I believe, at least in part, sub-serves the increasing crime rate in Manchester and Salford. I prefer spending money on increasing social amenities than on expanding the grim old gaol at Strangeways.
Of course, I agree with the hon. Member for Runcorn that it is important that there should not only be the likelihood of arrest, but also the certainty of conviction. Here, I pay tribute to the dedication of the Manchester and Salford police force in all that it has done in this respect.
Finally, I press my hon. Friend to let us have an early reply to the representations made by hon. Members representing Manchester constituencies when they went to the Home Office. My hon. Friend is a remarkably civilised man. I know him well enough to appreciate that anything


he can do to illuminate the causes of this problem, and to give us the comparative statistics by which to set the problem in perspective, he will be glad to do.

8.17 p.m.

Mr. David Waddington: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) for initiating this debate. I can think of no subject more important for the House to address its attention to.
The increase in indictable offences last year was disturbing and disappointing after what happened the year before. Particularly disturbing is the increase in crimes of violence. It is of the greatest importance to improve methods of detection and to step up the rate of detection. If we could convince every would-be offender that if he offended he would be caught, we should probably have no offenders. But nobody imagines that in the foreseeable future we will so step up the rate of detection to eliminate this social evil, which has got worse in recent years.
I should like to call attention to another aspect of the problem. What is needed, above all, is a change in public attitudes. This is a sphere in which we can all help. It would be wrong for me to discuss recent events in Havant and Petersfield, which have attracted the attention of the Press. I merely say in vacuo, without passing any comment on the practice of carting people through the streets in handcuffs, that it is not a great thing to ask of a citizen in a responsible position that he or she should be prepared to promise to be of good behaviour for a period.
What worries me is that there seems to be a lack of discipline in society today, a lack of respect for established institutions, and, unfortunately, all too often, an unwillingness to give the police the help which they deserve. If mature people are prepared to make a nuisance of themselves with the police, what are the young and the impressionable to think? I know from experience that the police do not get the co-operation from the public which they deserve. Cases of vandalism have occurred very close to where I live.
People living nearby were very ready to complain about the hardship and inconvenience that they were suffering as a result of this vandalism, but when ques-

tioned by the police, and when it was all too apparent that they knew quite well who the offenders were, they were not prepared to say anything. They did not want any trouble with the neighbours. They did not want to start an argument with them if they got little Johnny into trouble, but they knew quite well that it was little Johnny who caused all the trouble.
I must remark upon the trend towards permissiveness in recent years. There is the violence on television, and sex on the stage and in films. I find it difficult to believe that this has not had some influence upon the attitudes and behaviour of young people. I doubt whether we shall see any improvement in criminal statistics until the whole tone of national life is improved. Happily, these things seems to go in cycles, and I believe that at last reaction has set in—and a good thing, too.
But I am more disturbed by the recent trend in the treatment of young offenders. We seem to have been doing our best in recent years to blur entirely in the minds of young people the distinction between right and wrong. We seem to set little store on discipline. I doubt whether we can teach a child self-discipline unless we have first taught him discipline. He must be taught at an early stage that he should obey people older than himself, because the chances are that they are a little wiser than he is. The trend has been the other way. All too often, and with the best intentions, people have, through their reforms, made it increasingly difficult for young people to understand what is expected of them, and what is their duty towards society.
It is a problem for all of us. I am not indicting the Government. There is food for thought for the whole community in these dismal and disturbing figures.

8.22 p.m.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I agree with the hon. Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) that this is a serious problem—perhaps the most serious the country faces. I am as perplexed as other hon. Members in trying to put my finger on a solution. All our attempts at solutions are tentative. Before I put forward suggestions that I conceive will be of some assistance in reducing the amount of crime, I want to refer to the speech


that we have just heard. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) adverted to the refusal of some people in Portsmouth to be bound over. He was critical of their attitude. It ought to be said, in respect of an issue concerning the attitude of the community towards crime, that it is essential that the administration of our criminal laws is seen to be fair and just in the eyes of the community and that nothing could bring it into greater disrepute than that the law should be exercised in a way that seems flagrantly unjust to the community.
I am concerned not so much that there is a power to bind over even those who have not been convicted. It is a power which I conceive still to be of considerable use in maintaining public order. I do not believe that because a law was passed in 1361, or became part of the common law from time immemorial, that it is useless. The power to bind over, even where there has been no conviction, is a useful and salutary method of dealing with potential disturbance. But this was not such a case. There was no real disturbance. There was a threat to public order, which comes from any assembly of people in large numbers.
I am not criticising the police in this respect; no doubt they were right to make an arrest. Since the case has not been tried I do not wish to prejudge anything that might be said about it. But in my view, in binding over when the question was simply one of remand on bail, the magistrates went beyond their province. They bound over people who believed that they had committed no offence, who pleaded not guilty, and who were resisting the prosecution on the basis that they had a right peacefully to demonstrate. That opinion is now shared by a wide section of the community. Without in any way prejudging the case, I submit that the hon. Member should not be quite so hostile to those involved. They thought that they were acting properly and peacefully and that in the circumstances they were unjustly treated.

Mr. Waddington: I did not think that I was being unduly hostile. I tried to put the case in the most moderate language possible. I thought that I made the point that I was not prepared to become involved in any sort of argument about the

merits of the case. I was not condoning all that happened as a result of the refusal to be bound over.

Mr. Lyon: I have adverted to that for long enough. I ought to continue with my speech.
In my view four possibilities are open to us in deciding how to reduce the level of crime. First—and this is adverted to most frequently by every self-styled moralist—there is the question of the moral climate of the community. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne referred to it. Undoubtedly it must be of some significance. One of the purposes of any kind of reasonable education system, and one of the purposes of any kind of religious and moral training, is the hope, which seems to be proved by experience of centuries, that we should create a community where self-discipline becomes part of the fibre of most of the community.
I do not belittle any reference to methods of improving the moral climate of the community; in my off days on Sundays I do what I can to promote a proper moral climate from the pulpit. But I suggest that we should be chary of seeking an easy remedy in this way. The connection between crime and the wider use of sex and violence in films and books is very tenuous. It may exist, but we simply do not know at the moment; our techniques for social observation by sociologists are not sufficiently advanced for us to know how far this has a causative effect on crime. It is to be hoped that such bodies as the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge will ultimately provide us scientifically with some of the answers which so far we do not know.
It is easy to whip up a witch hunt against the foibles and practices of those whom we dislike on the pretence that we are thereby creating a better moral climate in the community. It was on just such a pretence that we manufactured Victorian prudery and the witch hunts which have taken place throughout history. There is much to be said for what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor at the weekend called the civilised society, in which subjects which were normally considered not suitable to be discussed ten, fifteen or twenty years ago are now openly and rationally discussed, because it seems to me that in such a climate


we can get at the significant social problems which exist in our community. I should be reluctant to give aid and comfort to any body of public opinion which wanted to reduce the extent of permissiveness on the basis that that would contribute either to a lessening of crime or, even more tenuously, to a general improvement in the social climate in this country. The whole matter is far too speculative.
May I give an example? The Chief Constable of my local area—the York and Yorkshire, North Riding and East Riding, Police Force, which is a gargantuan title applying to the amalgamated police force—in his recent report upon the state of crime in the area spoke of the causes of crime. In so far as he referred to matters directly within police experience, he was obviously right to put them before the public, but he added that in his view part of the reason for the increase in crime was the higher taxation in recent years.
With the greatest respect, in my judgment that is nonsense. There is no connection which can be seen in criminal statistics between the amount of taxation, either in this country or in any other country, and the amount of crime which exists in those countries. If we consider cases of fraud, and even simply tax cases, we find that the number is infinitesimal against the general background of the relationships inside a community. I therefore find this a wholly unacceptable thesis as a cause of crime, and I deeply regret that the Chief Constable thought fit to give publicity to what may be a good talking point in cocktail parties in the North Riding but which seems to me to have no basis in fact.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Would not the hon. Gentleman at least accept that high taxation normally brings with it high levels of tax avoidance and that to the extent to which tax avoidance becomes widespread it reduces the status of the law in the eye of the citizen? Is not that true of racing and many other matters?

Mr. Lyon: If the hon. Member is talking about tax avoidance, then in the technical sense all that one does is to conduct one's affairs within the law in such a way that one does not pay tax. I do not think that that encourages law-

lessness. If he is talking about tax evasion, then I agree that that is a criminal instinct which would be encouraged by higher taxation. But if he is saying that because there is an increase in tax evasion—about which he may have some information which I do not possess—that is reflected in wider criminal practices throughout the country, I do not agree with him.
The number of people who are paying Income Tax by P.A.Y.E. represents such a large proportion of the total community that it is highly unlikely that their attitude towards their tax returns will encourage them in crime in other directions. With some slight experience of criminals, from my professional life, I can say that I have found that most of them are on P.A.Y.E. when they are working and that they do not come within those practices of tax evasion which normally fall within Schedule D.
We must be chary on the subject, although sociologists clearly have something to tell us, and the Ministers of religion and the teachers have something to do, to help in reducing the tendency of people to commit crime—in other words, to encourage self-discipline. But if self-discipline is not present, what can be done about applying discipline? It is important not to get the matter out of perspective. Even in 1967, the last full year for which we have figures, only 250,000 people were convicted if indictable offences. Granted the number of offences committed is five times the number of those who are ultimately brought before the court and the number of those who committed such offences may have been twice as large. But that is still only one in 200 of the population, a very small proportion.
How are they to be deterred? One way is punishment, one of the objects of which is to deter the recurrence of the crime, either by the person concerned or others. I accept that it must be sufficiently severe to be a deterrent, but I do not believe that capital punishment comes within that category, for reasons which have been well adumbrated on other occasions. I do not intend to go into them now. It is still true that about two-thirds of murders are committed within the family situation, where there is no question of the murderer being a criminal in any other sense, and no question of a repetition.
Murder is a unique offence, and not really related to the tendency towards crime in other spheres. But there is a case for saying that a man like Richardson or Kray, who is prepared to go to almost any length to extend his criminal empire, is not to be deterred by anything less than the severe sentences of imprisonment which have been passed in recent years.
I recognise all the difficulties of maintaining a human being's fibre during a period of imprisonment that can extend beyond 15 years. This has its difficulties for the Prison Service, but society is entitled to say that for such people there must be some kind of deterrent in punishment.
Fortunately, such people are rare, and the kind of punishment required to deter the ordinary, run-of-the-mill criminal is much less, and our system of punishment is sufficiently comprehensive to deal with everybody who might fall within the net, as is shown by the fact that our present maximum sentences are rarely required in passing deterrent sentences. But we must recognise that where an offence becomes part of the normal ambit of a criminal who is constantly coming before the court the longer sentences have less effect than the certainty of conviction. Detection, and then conviction, are the most important part of reducing the tendency to crime.
A good deal has been said about the police and recruitment. I will leave it to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to deal with from the figures he has. A great deal can still be done in mobilising the police more efficiently to meet the challenge of criminals who are becoming much more sophisticated and have at their command resources which are not yet matched sufficiently well by the police.
I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to say something about the effect upon crime of new experiments like the Panda cars, the unibeat system of vehicles, introduced recently. I have great hopes of the Accrington system and similar types of unibeat policing, which, in my view, are likely to provide a very effective deterrent to crime by placing the policeman in the locality sufficiently frequently and sufficiently obviously to

be a real deterrent. As the hon. Member for Runcorn said, if we had a policeman behind every potential criminal when he was about to commit a crime, we would have no crime. That is self-evident.
I want to come to the point about the certainty of conviction. If we could catch sufficient criminals—as we do not now—and bring them before the courts and they recognised that having been caught they would be convicted whenever they had committed a criminal offence, this would be the greatest deterrent of all. But one of the defects of our legal system is that a man still has a very considerable chance of avoiding the just penalty for his deeds provided that he knows how to set about appearing before the court and how to handle the police when he is in a police station. Provided he keeps silent and does not make a statement his chances of acquittal are very considerable.
When we have a system of law that puts a premium upon deceiving the police, upon playing the game in such a way as to avoid one's just deserts, we should really reconsider it. I agree with the hon. Member for Runcorn that our legal system was fashioned at the end of the last century in relation to the procedures then for dealing with criminal offences. It was fashioned at the time when we were passing away from the notion that the criminal never went into the witness box, that his case had to be proved by other evidence and that he was not allowed to say anything at all.
When the time came to allow the criminal to say something, clearly the community thought that it was wise to put protection around this new right, For people who were largely ignorant, largely uneducated, there clearly was a case for saying that a man should not be compelled to say anything which might incriminate him and that he should be given every opportunity of not saying anything unless he wished to do so. Now we have a different stage of society when everyone—or almost everyone—is educated, when a great many criminals are sophisticated, when frequently the man who commits an offence is the man who is most likely to be able to give satisfactory evidence about what went on and when even the man who is accused, perhaps wrongly, of an offence is best able


to explain all the suspicious circumstances that have occurred.
It seems ludicrous that before one can get to the stage of getting that evidence before some impartial body one has to wait right until the end of the trial, often at assizes or quarter sessions, which take place long after the offence has been committed, and after the police have been put to great expense and difficulty in preparing their case against the accused.
I have, therefore, become persuaded—I must confess that I was not persuaded at the time—by the dissenting opinion of the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) in the report of Justice published in 1960. It seems to me that the argument which he there advanced is very cogent—that the time has now come to remove the right to silence from accused people.
At a very early stage, when the police have marshalled sufficient evidence to show some kind of prima facie case, the accused should be asked in the presence of a magistrate, or some other independent person, to give an explanation, and that explanation should be taken down in writing and should be signed there and then. The person asked to give the explanation should not be allowed to say, "I refuse to answer", or, if he does, that should be evidence against him at his trial. In these circumstances, at a very early stage, when all the matters are fresh in people's minds, the explanation given by the suspect would be taken into account.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Will not my hon. Friend go one step further than that and say that if a person had to make this confession or statement he would have the right to have his legal representative present so that the statement would not be made just to the police?

Mr. Lyon: I was coming to that very point. The difficulty which I have so far experienced with this proposal is whether an admission or a description of what had happened, a statement of what had happened, made only to the police, should be allowed as evidence in the proceedings. At present, most statements are made only in the presence of police officers. There is much to be said for moving to a situation where only statements made before a magistrate, or some other independent body, would be admissible as evidence at the trial. If we continue to

allow statements in the, presence only of police officers, all the present disadvantages of the present system continue.
I do not want to be in any way critical of police officers, but there is no doubt—and all those who have practised in the courts will recognise this—that at times the present rules have to be bent by the police if they are to acquire the evidence they want. Although I do not believe most of the stories that criminals tell about being beaten or tortured by the police—they always seem quite far-fetched—it is right to say that the police create conditions within the police station in which the accused is led to make some statement about what happened. It is partly psychological persuasion, partly the set up which terrifies him and partly because he is sometimes led to believe that it will be good for him to make a statement.
However it is done, it offends against the spirit of the Judges Rules, although not necessarily against the explicit instruction of the Judges Rules. I believe it to be sometimes necessary for this to happen, or there would not otherwise be the number of convictions that there are, but it carries with it the danger that an innocent man can be convicted. After all, in the one clear case that we have of an innocent man who was convicted, Timothy Evans, he made two statements to police officers in circumstances which were criticised at the time, statements which were admissions of guilt.
Therefore, in order to avoid that altogether and to avoid any suggestion by the police that statements in circumstances like that could be helpful to the accused, it would be better to get away from accepting as evidence any statements made when only the police were present. One would use the evidence which the police officers had as a prima facie case of guilt before an investigating magistrate to whom the suspect would be asked to give an explanation. His explanation could then be investigated and become evidence at the trial.
This would be the major step forward towards getting a greater conviction rate and thereby a greater reduction in the number of crimes now committed.

8.50 p.m.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I apologise to my hon. Friend


the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Mark Carlisle) for not being able to hear his speech, but I am grateful to him for having raised this matter. The hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) made a thoughtful speech, but he under-estimated the practical difficulties which would arise if the police could not use the statements made to them, often in difficult circumstances but always after a caution. Of course there are exceptions, but, usually, any person who is taken to a police station is cautioned before being asked to make a statement. This is a real safeguard.
The hon. Gentleman should be very hesitant in proposing that those statements which are made after a caution should not be admissible in court unless an independent legal adviser had been present.
With much of his speech, however, I agree. The hon. Gentleman referred to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech over the weekend about the civilised society. I thought it was very relevant to that debate, and was in character for the Chancellor, who has given much thought to these questions. I honour him for what he said.
I would, nevertheless, oppose to his ideas of the civilised society, which I support, the notion of a responsible society. Recent legislation may well have increased our social freedom, as I believe it has, but there is a danger of its removing that sense of felt responsibility which an individual has for his family, his community, his country and himself.
This is a large philosophical area into which, perhaps, I should not tread, but I would place alongside the notion of a civilised and permissive society that of a responsible and self-reliant society. Discipline is important as well as permissiveness.
As far as the police are concerned, the House knows that I have an interest. And I start by pointing out that the demands upon the police over the last five or 10 years have multiplied enormously, whether from traffic, from crime, from demonstrations, or through the many laws which we pass and with which they must familiarise themselves. Also, there are the new problems of drugs and violence.
The police are also in the midst of what amounts to a revolution in their methods and organisation. I believe that the recent amalgamations have been generally a useful step forward. There may be more to come. But we should now let the police service have time to settle down. Do not let us have another set of amalgamations and regional reorganisations until we have consolidated the new forces.
There have also been important changes bringing civilianisation to the service, new responsibilities for the traffic wardens. All of these create problems as well as solving problems.
Then there is the new unit beat system. I have had the opportunity of visiting a whole series of forces and observing this system in operation. On the whole, it has been a success. But I hope that the Under-Secretary will accept that it it not yet an entirely demonstrated success. I hope that it will spread across the country and will become more effective, but there is much work still to be done to perfect it. We must ensure for instance that the collator, who is the key to the system, has the training and the backing which are essential to his function.
Then there is the virtual revolution in equipment, in the whole technology of policing. The Research and Planning Branch does excellent work and is a credit to the Home Office and to the country. With the use of the personal radio and, very soon, of the computer and other modern accessories, the police are undergoing a technological revolution. They have taken to it well. In the process they have overtaken the American police in their policing techniques. In broad terms, they are not only the most organised and dedicated police forces in the world, but are becoming the best equipped.
Given these enormous new demands upon the police and the rapid changes in their organisation and technology, there will gradually have to be a new kind of policeman, too. New kinds of policemen already are growing up in the forces. On the whole, they are younger. They have to deal with more sophisticated problem, requiring an increasingly high quality of man. But as we gradually develop more sophisticated and professional police forces, composed


of better educated and better trained men, these men must have the rewards that go with a professional and sophisticated service. I do not wish tonight to press the Minister in the direction in which he knows I am going. It is perfectly plain.
The police force of today and tomorrow requires several things. It requires the right rewards, but that is for another moment. It requires, as my hon. Friend the Member for Runcorn said, to be backed up by the magistrates. It requires more men on the job.
I echo what has been said by many people when I say that the present absurd situation is that there are three sets of strength in each force. There are the established strength, the permitted strength and the actual strength. It is time that there were only two strengths. We should have the establishment. I realise that all kinds of researches are going on into what an establishment should be. But we should get away from the permitted strength, which arose largely from the financial crisis of two years ago. I hope that it will soon be possible to be done with the whole notion of permitted strength with a financial ceiling and to relate the actual strength to the genuine establishment that the forces should have.
However much the police service may change, at the base of everything it does is the constable. His status is the crucial element within the service. I hope that the Under-Secretary, who is shortly to take the chair of the new working party on rank structure within the service, will accept from me that there are two important points which that working party should consider. First, if rank structure is being considered, the territorial pattern of organisation must also be considered within each force. I do not know whether in future we shall be able to have the division and sub-division arrangement that we have always had. I suspect that the pattern of organisation will have to be considered alongside of rank structure.
My second point concerns the status of the constable. After two years' probation a man may take his examination to become a sergeant. Very often he may be promoted sergeant within three or four years of joining the force, and this is right. We want to encourage the young man to get ahead.
If, however, a man is capable of passing the examination, being promoted sergeant and sent out on the beat, by the same token he should be able to enjoy all the incremental advantages of a constable during the same period. That is to say, if, within four or five years of joining the force, a constable can become a sergeant, he should certainly be able to come on to the top scale of a constable's pay during that same period. At least, that should be the aim towards which we should move.
My last point concerns something for which I give the Government credit. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer started the very useful working parties in the Home Office. He set in train a structural revolution in the service which has been fruitful. He has been succeeded by the Home Secretary, whose knowledge of the police is very great, as I have reason to know. But I hope that present and future Ministers—who may come from this side of the House—will accept that if they want to tackle the problems of crime and to deal with the police they must do so in close consultation with those who are elected to represent the police.
It is vital that the closest consultation should be undertaken between Home Office Ministers and those who represent the police organisations, all of them. I am sure that the Minister has this very much in mind and that this would contribute to dealing with the problems of law and order.

9.2 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Marks: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) for raising this matter and for some of his observations. His point about deterrents apparently not having great effect and increased deterrents not reducing crime are interesting. I think it is true to say that violent punishment does not necessarily provide the answer to violent crime. I think, too, that the hon. Member's point that because we are an affluent society we are more susceptible to crime is important. There is more money about. More people carry more money and leave it in their houses and go away from their houses for longer periods and leave property and often money inside.
I do not, however, agree with the point made by the hon. Member that we must not consider the long-term causes of crime, because we in this House and local authorities, in our decisions and in our actions, have to consider carefully what will be the effect on crime and other things a number of years hence.
I think it is true to say that the increase in crime is greater in the big cities than elsewhere. We want to know what part of our great cities this applies to. A survey of juvenile delinquency a few years ago in Manchester revealed that it was highly concentrated in those areas around the inner circle of the city where housing was worse and in areas, such as Wythenshawe, where there was new housing but not the amenities to go with it.
I think it is true to say that the solution of some of our problems lies not only with the Home Office but with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and with the local authorities. An unsettled life, particularly in the early years, is a cause of crime. It is significant that when some fairly deep research was undertaken by the Home Office Research Unit and published in a Report entitled "Delinquent Generations", the report stated that
a particular generation of children has had unusually heavy delinquency rates. Children born between 1935 and 1942 have been more delinquent over the whole post-war period than those born in any other seven-year period. Moreover, the highest delinquency rates have occurred among those children who were four or five years old during some part of the war and this suggests the possibility that disturbances at such ages may have a particular harmful effect.
It went further—and this was in 1955—and said that youths aged between 17 and 21 who would have been expected because of their years of birth to be exceptionally delinquent had been found more delinquent than could have been foretold. This group is now in the age range 31 to 35, and there needs to be some thought about whether this group is providing the leadership of much of the crime which exists today, and not only the leadership but the actual committal of the crimes.
The war caused unsettlement, but unsettlement is now being caused by the urban renewal of our great cities, particularly in those areas which are to become clearance areas where many of the

houses are both occupied and unoccupied. Local authorities ought to remember this and get these clearance areas tackled early and rebuilt as soon as possible. The blank, bleak area around the centre of Manchester, with the bright lights at the centre, at the moment provides some cause of crime. We have got to look at city centres. Are clubs an incitement to crime? I believe that many of them, and the circumstances in which they operate can be. We have had a tremendous growth in amusement arcades which are an attraction to the young and take them into city centres where they are affected.
We live in an age when violence is news, and unfortunately it is also "good" entertainment. Television producers and programme controllers have got to consider this aspect particularly carefully. During the years after the war when I taught at school boys changed from people who had fights with fists to young men who put a boot in and carried offensive weapons around, and from the television screen they learned all the tricks of wrestling and violent assault.
The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) mentioned the question of school and discipline. I agree that changes in school can be effected and that schools can be more democratic, but this is only possible if the changes are made within an atmosphere of order. We must not assume from that that schools which have tough discipline where the boys are told, "You do it because we know better" are necessarily the schools which will have the fewest delinquents. The escape from school into the freedom of the outside world, the freedom to do as they like and as they think, can itself be an inducement to lawlessness.
The likelihood of arrest has been described by a number of hon. Members as the best deterrent. I think it is important, in view of what the hon. Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) said about the 25 per cent. rate, to look at Manchester and Salford, particularly in this range of indictable offences of violence against the person. Last year in Manchester and Salford there were 1,033 such cases. In 889 cases, 86·1 per cent., they were cleared up. In Lancashire, in the area of the Lancashire constabulary, there were 933 cases of which 892 were cleared up, a 95·6 per cent. clearance rate.
It is important that these figures should be known so that anybody committing such an act in Manchester or Salford should know that the odds against his getting away with it are six to one and in Lancashire 20 to 1. We should give the utmost possible support, and the public should, too, to the police in improving that figure.

9.10 p.m.

Mr. Paul Hawkins: I apologise for not having attended the whole debate. I do not intend to go over the same ground as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) but, as a magistrate for many years, I should like to say a word about the police.
One thing which has contributed to the lack of discipline and order among the younger generation is the lack of some form of national service. I am not advocating that young men should serve compulsorily in one of the Armed Forces, but that far greater encouragement should be given to our young people to undertake some form of service, either in their own country or overseas, which will be of benefit to the world. I know from the experience of my own family that this has a steadying effect.
If only we could reduce the number of traffic offences the police would be relieved of the immense amount of work which has resulted from the enormous increase in the number of cars on the road. A person in a car following an elderly gentleman who is trotting down the middle of the road on a Saturday afternoon becomes quite a different person from the person he is when he is walking along the pavement.
An increase in the number of policemen in cars and on motorcycles patrolling the roads would have a great effect on the way in which we drive and behave on the road. There is one section of the road in the Isle of Ely, in Cambridgeshire, where every three or four miles one sees a police car. When I am driving in that part of the country I travel with far more care because I expect to see a white car with the word "Police" painted on it, and so do many other drivers. In contrast, when I travel across my home county to Norwich, which is 48 miles away, even at peak traffic hours I never see a police car on the road.
There is a great shortage of police, and I know the reasons for this. We do not want a huge, privileged police force, but we want the very best. The work of a policeman is tiring and arduous and he should be recompensed accordingly. I am not picking out hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House, but many Left wingers attack the police whenever they have the opportunity. This is bad for the morale of the police, as they cannot answer back.
Whereas, in the countryside, there used to be the "bobby" in the village who knew the young men, and women for that matter, in his own village and was able to say to the parents, "For heaven's sake stop the boy from riding a motorbike without a licence", nowadays, that boy goes up to the local town where the "bobby" does not know him, he gets "run in" and there is irritation between the police and the younger generation.
I shall probably be thought quite out of date if I say that I should like to see a return to the "bobby"; in each village; he was a great social help to the area. But perhaps in these days this is something which the police do not want.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: My hon. Friend is on a good point, but would he accept that the whole philosophy of the unit beat system is to bring the village "bobby" conception into the towns. The sad thing is that in the process it often reduces the number of police in the villages to the point where one has almost empty police stations.

Mr. Hawkins: That is the point I am trying to emphasise. There are large villages in the Fen areas of my constituency which are five or 10 miles away from a police force and which are without any police constable at all. People say to me how much they miss the man on the spot, ready to help with any sort of problem, whether it be a horse that has got into a dyke, or whatever it may be. He was there ready, willing and able to help, a man who was a leader in his village.
It seems to me that there is too early retirement for policemen. It may be that this has to happen, but many of the inspectors in my district retire between 50 and 55. They surely have many years of first-class service and leadership before them. I have often spoken to


inspectors and others in my area who say that they wonder where the leaders will come from. I believe that they will be found, but in these days we cannot afford to lose this standard of man.
I have had experience of sitting on a magistrates' bench, and I hesitate to say it publicly but those occasions are probably the most boring I ever spent. For 90 per cent. of the time one hears traffic cases. At least two magistrates whom I knew and heard traffic cases had never driven a motor car or a motor cycle in their life.
We should think about having specially appointed magistrates to deal only with traffic offences. They could be people who would have a quick understanding of maps and who could get through the business much more expeditiously. They could have a standard of fines which could be applied to traffic offences and I am sure that the whole system would work much more effectively.
In the Home Office at present are Ministers who wish to bring about a great improvement in crime prevention methods. I wish them the best of luck. I hope that they will do all they can to increase the strength of the police force and to give us a force of which we can be proud, as we have been proud of them in the past, a force not so-hard-worked as it is at present.

9.18 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan): We have had a wide-ranging and substantial debate. A large number of points have been raised and I will do the best I can to touch on the main issues which have arisen. I, too, would like to congratulate the hon. Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) for having succeeded in the Ballot and allowed us an opportunity to discuss crime.
The hon. Member described the increase in crime rates as a major social problem, and I know that every hon. Member in the House will accept that this is exactly what it is. It is a problem demanding the intensive and constant interest of the whole of society, a problem of which this House must at all times be cognisant. Nevertheless, I would make the plea that although it is a matter which must always demand

the attention of Parliament it is not a political issue. In this matter the interests of all parties are exactly the same.
I trust I do not make the plea in vain that, despite the temptations which results of sophisticated market research might hold out, these temptations will be resisted by all parties in the House. The increase in crime has been made dramatic by the fact that the number of indictable offences known to the police in England and Wales outside of London exceeded the 1 million mark for the first time in 1968. It would be a mistake to think that anything particularly dramatic had occurred this year making it particularly distinctive. In the Metropolitan area the increase in 1968 was only 0·8 per cent. In 1967 the increase in the provinces was negligible, while in the Metropolitan Police area there was a decrease. To see the matter in perspective we have to look over a long period of years.
It is unhappily true that, although there have been fluctuations, crime in England and Wales has been increasing steadily over a number of years. It has roughly doubled since 1958, although the actual annual increase has not been unusual. Last year's increase in England and Wales as a whole was 6·8 per cent. In 1967 it was less than 1 per cent., whereas in 1960 and 1962 it topped 10 per cent. In 1957 the increase was 13·7 per cent. and the following year it was 14·8 per cent. The level of crime has probably been increasing steadily in Britain since the beginning of this century. Differences in recording do not enable an exact comparison to be made.
One factor in the rise of recorded crime is probably that there is an increasing readiness to report crimes to the police. Perhaps as a result of education people are more articulate, and because of a more democratic outlook they are more ready to approach authority. Ironically it is perhaps because they are generally more law-abiding. For example, a tavern brawl would hardly have been reported to the police seven decades ago, but now it is reported and appears in crime statistics.
This increase is also to be seen in the context of a world-wide tendency. It is not an isolated phenomenon peculiar to Britain. Comparisons with other countries are never straightforward, but it is


well known that the United States is experiencing a substantial increase in crime. In 1968 the increase was of the order of 19 per cent. In the city of New York in 1968 there were over 1,000 murders as compared with 53 in London during the same period. Another factor to bear in mind is that the distribution of the increase among different types of crime is diverse. In the Metropolitan area there was a disturbing increase of 17 per cent. in the number of indictable crimes in which firearms were used, particularly robberies and assaults with intent to rob, where the increase was 31 per cent. Offences against the person also increased substantially, although it is fair to say that the majority were minor woundings.
We must note with concern the tendency to increased violence in the commission of crime. I want to say a word about the possible causes of this increase and the fact that it is something which should concern the whole community. The House will expect me to say a word about the police and the steps which are being taken within the service, and by Governmental action to equip them to face this rising menace. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Runcorn, for whom I have a high regard, should have attempted to link the increase in the level of crime with any question of manpower. He is far too sound a spokesman on Home Office matters to lend himself to the purveying of political propaganda in that way.
I suggest that there are two good reasons why the hon. Gentleman should not do this. First, there is no foundation for such a contention. If there is no real connection between the two, obviously the hon. Gentleman's argument is wholly misleading.
I put it to him that any examination of the figures for the rise in crime and for the increase or decrease, as the case may be, in the level of recruitment to the police over the last ten years, makes it clear that there is no consistent pattern of connection between those figures.

Mr. Carlisle: How can the hon. Gentleman possibly say that there is no connection between the police force and the rate of crime? Is he seriously saying that the police force being between 15 and 20 per cent. under strength, particularly in

the Metropolitan area, has nothing to do with the rate of crime?

Mr. Morgan: If the hon. Gentleman's contention were correct, there would have to be some rough parallel between the two sets of figures.
In 1960 there was a net decrease of 0·6 per cent. in the level of manpower in the police. But that was the year when there was an increase of 10·2 per cent. in the level of crime. Looking at those figures, one could say, "Yes, there is a parallel between the two". But in each of the years 1963 and 1964 there was an increase of 9·2 per cent. in the level of indictable crimes, whereas there was an increase of 2·5 per cent. in police manpower in 1963 and an increase of less than half, or 1·2 per cent. in 1964. There is no connection whatever in figures for the decade that I have mentioned, nor for any other period, as far as I am aware. Unless and until such a connection between the two sets of figures can be shown, any argument founded upon such a supposition would be irresponsible.

Mr. Deedes: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that the percentage of crimes cleared up has a bearing on crime and that that figure may depend on the strength of the police?

Mr. Morgan: To some extent it would depend on the strength of the police, but it would also depend on many other factors. It would depend whether there were fewer or more crimes committed. The more crimes that are committed, the tendency is for the crime detection rate to fall, but the totality of crimes that are cleared up would rise.
The second reason why this argument should not be deployed by the hon. Member for Runcorn is because it can be turned back with devastating force upon his own party. He who lives by the numbers game, as it has been called, is likely in debating terms to perish by it.
During our Administration the average net increase in police manpower is about 1,000 men a year more than during the Conservative Administration. The hon. Gentleman will, therefore, clearly see that he has no argument in that respect. In the last four years of Conservative Administration there was an increase of 6,400 in police manpower. In the first four years of Labour Administration there


was an increase of 8,400. I am sure that that is one pertinent point that every hon. Member is willing to accept.
We have heard tonight, as we always do in these discussions, of the disparity between establishment and actual strength. It is worth noting that at the moment the strength of the police forces in England and Wales is slightly higher than the establishment figure for 1964. If one thinks in terms of being a certain number of years behind establishment figure, that is probably more realistic than to quote it in percentage terms.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I regret that the hon. Gentleman has got involved in this. The population of this country is rising by one-third of a million per year. Surely this is the relevant point. The important thing about police manpower is the proportion of police per thousand of population.

Mr. Morgan: I should be very happy to accept that, but I do not think that the position is quite as simple as the hon. Gentleman suggests. If the hon. Gentleman works it out in percentage terms in that way, he will find that the percentage shortfall is very different from the actual shortfall of police strength compared with establishment strength. The two are totally different.

Mr. W. F. Deedes: Does not the hon. Gentleman accept that there was a period when police establishments were deliberately not increased because of the shortfall in recruiting? If he makes comparisons over a period between strength and establishment, he must take into account periods when the establishment were not where they should have been.

Mr. Morgan: As far as I know, in 1964 it was not argued that the establishments were unrealistic. That is why I was careful to take that year for the purpose of comparison.
I feel that it would have been proper for the hon. Gentleman to have accepted what was so wisely said by his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) in the debate in this House on 24th February:
…I think it ill-becomes the partisans in the parties on either side to play what has been called appropriately enough the

numbers game and make selective quotations from particular years, trying to make the public believe that from year to year there is more than a marginal effect which any Government of either complexion can have upon the crime figures."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th February, 1969; Vol. 778, c. 1149.]

Mr. Carlisle: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that there will not be too many interventions. There are 40 debates ahead of us.

Mr. Carlisle: The hon. Gentleman is being unfair. I went out of my way time and again to say that I was not attempting to suggest that other than marginally the Government had any influence on the rate of crime. My only criticism, and I still believe it is valid, is that the Government deliberately limited recruitment in the last year. I did not play the numbers game. It is the hon. Gentleman who is attempting to play it.

Mr. Morgan: I shall leave it there. I should not have mentioned this aspect at all, were it not necessary to do so by way of rebuttal. Despite the charm exhibited by the hon. Gentleman, he said that the Government were letting the country down in this respect, and the whole tenor of that part of his speech was such as to suggest that this was not any de minimis factor, but a substantial and fundamental one.
The police are, of course, the bulwark of the State against crime, but it is not to be supposed that if, because of the temper of the age, they are not as successful as we would like them to be in preventing the growth of crime, this is due to any fault on their part, or, I claim, on the part of the Government of the day. We have a police service which is second to none in the world. It has been organised with great and improving efficiency. It is growing in manpower. It is increasingly being equipped with modern equipment. and it is well trained and well commanded.
Let me describe briefly some of the steps which have been taken in the past few years to improve the quality of our police service. Without reducing this to the level of partisan politics, it is proper to point out that at the moment we are spending about 60 per cent. more on our police services than was spent in 1963–64. As to organisation, the Government have almost completed the programme of amalgamations inaugurated


by the then Home Secretary in May 1966. Under this the number of police forces in England and Wales will, by 1st October next, have been reduced from 117 to 47. This has meant the creation of much larger police forces, and the increase in efficiency brought about by this—as was fairly said by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths)—is already beginning to show itself, especially in improved organisation and internal training.
Next, as to manpower, a good deal has been said about the restraints on the growth of police manpower introduced by the Government at the end of last year. This is not a debate on the economic situation, and it is sufficient to say that the Government would have been failing in their duty if, in the economic circumstances which existed, they had not controlled all aspects of public expenditure, including expenditure on the police. Nevertheless, substantial provision has been made for increases in police manpower and in civilian aids and equipment. It is true that in the 15-months period ending 31st March this year the police service was not increased by the number of men we had hoped to get.
There may have been various reasons for this. The fact that wastage during the year proved to exceed that of the previous year by a figure roughly equivalent to the shortfall in the increase was certainly and understandably a contributory factor. The Press publicity given to the policy of restrictions possibly created a mistaken impression in the minds of the public that the police did not need recruits, with the result that the number of applications for recruitment declined. It is probably true to say that police recruiting arrangements throughout the country required time to adjust to conditions of manpower restraints.
We have learned the lessons of this experience. A national publicity drive to secure recruits has just been launched and it will emphasise—what the public perhaps did not realise before—that the police are continually in the market for recruits and need 7,500 this year in order to replace wastage and to secure the increase of 2,000 which we plan to have by the end of March next year. This slight setback of last year must be seen in perspective. In the last four years the strength of the police strength has

grown by over 9,500 men and if all goes well it will, by the end of the current financial year, have been increased by a further 2,000.
There has been a vast improvement during the last four years in modern equipment for the police, in the form, among other things, of the provision of 20,000 pocket radio sets and an increase in the number of motor cars in use from 13,000 to about 18,000.
The improvement in organisation of which I have spoken and the increase in manpower and equipment has been accompanied by far-reaching changes in operation techniques, both in the arrangements for beat controlling and in the Criminal Investigation Department. The increase in cars to which I have referred is mainly in the small, brightly painted cars used by beat policemen, which hon. Members who represent urban constituencies will know as panda cars. These cars and the new pocket radios have been used to install a new system of beat patrolling which combines the advantages of mobility with the old virtues of the police officer on foot who knows a certain area of ground very well, and its problems and people intimately, and has added a new factor to the reporting, filing, collating and dissemination of information. The hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hawkins) can therefore be quite certain that the development in this system will mean that a constable will be exercising his traditional function within his bailiwick in a far more effective way than ever before.
This system of unit beat policing, originally devised by the police Research and Development Branch of the Home Office in collaboration with a few police forces, has been introduced very rapidly and it would be surprising if it did not have its teething troubles. My hon. Friend the Member for York touched on that point. This new system was the subject of a seminar last month in which there took part chief constables and assistant chief constables from all forces in the country and representatives of the police committees of the local authority associations. Defects were identified and methods of removing them were studied. But it is already clear that we have here a new system of beat patrolling in advance of that in use in any other country. It is a system which has already


substantially increased efficiency and which shows great potential for further improvement.
I turn briefly to the detection of crime. There has been a new policy to combat the threat of the new type of highly organised mobile gangs of criminals who have come into existence in the last 10 years. Regional crime squads, which came into existence in 1964, are this year, after a wide review of their progress and after discussing with police organisations, to remain in principle a permanent feature of policy. This is a tribute to their success in performing their main function which is to investigate and identify major criminals. Their job basically is to detect and apprehend the relatively few master-minds who are at the root of organised crime.
Similar techniques have been adopted by the Metropolitan Police. They found, for example, when investigating the Richardson case, that success came from the formation of a special squad of detectives, drawn from many branches of Scotland Yard, who could concentrate all their efforts on one case. This, in their view, is the right way to tackle the organised gangsters engaged in protection and other rackets on a massive scale. The Metropolitan Police will set up such a "gang squad" in all cases in which patient and relentless pursuit of highly organised and extensive criminal operations are necessary.
Much progress has been made on training. Hon. Members are well aware of the high standing in the police service in this country and throughout the world of the Police College at Bramshill, and its new wing at Dishforth, in Yorkshire, where the higher training of the police service is undertaken. But a great deal of detailed training is undertaken up and down the country. Some idea of its extent can be gained from the number of officers who attended courses during 1968. This included 7,000 recruits at the regional recruit training centres; 2,200 who underwent detective training; over 9,000 who went on driving and traffic control courses; and 15,000 police officers who undertook general police duty courses arranged by police forces themselves.
I said at the start of this survey of the achievement of the police in recent

years that it would be a mistake to look only to the police to carry out the war against crime. It is a co-operative effort by police and public. There is one aspect of it which I should like to mention. The message that the war against crime is not simply a fight between the police and the criminal but a contest between society and the criminal is the message of the crime prevention campaigns which have been held in each of the last four years. A high proportion of crimes are preventable. They are crimes in which an element of carelessness or neglect has made it easier for the criminal to operate.
We have not relied merely on exhortations to the public. Over the past six years more than 700 police and crime prevention officers have received training and 50 crime prevention panels have been set up. No one, unless he affects superhuman omniscience or alternatively is possessed of monumental naivete, can explain coherently why it is that most developed countries suffer of late from an almost continuing increase in crime rates. There is probably no single phenomenon of origin and the problem is certainly not defeasible by any single panacea. No doubt in many respects the increase in the volume of crime is one of the unavoidable by-products of modern development.
All manner of diverse factors have their relevance in this connection—environmental deficiencies, the existence of subcultures, the breakdown of old communities, a feeling, described by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) that the individual personality is subsumed and lost in anonymity, greater physical mobility between one area and another, and demographic changes, with large urban conurbations acting as vortexes for large populations drawn from varied backgrounds.
Other factors, are the sheer competitiveness in all modern societies, and what might be described as the corruptive influence of windfall affluence, the feeling that if substantial financial gains can be made almost fortuitously why should painstaking crime not be a source of profit as much as the exploitation of perhaps a mediocre talent by a mere nonentity?
Increases in police expenditure on manpower, civilian staff, equipment and research are now running at a scale wholly unprecedented. We know in our hearts, however, that the basic problem of crime is inextricably bound up with the structure of society itself. Governmental decisions can exercise a minimal influence.
Certainly, there is a great deal that we must cull from the research of sociologists and criminologists. At the end of the day, however, the fact remains that crime is the negation of the social idea. It is a betrayal. It is a denial of that bond of mutual respect and responsibility which must exist in every enlightened community between the individual and society.
The real challenge to crime is not so much the criminal law, the police, the law courts or our prisons. They cannot have the final responsibility. The ultimate burden for combating physical disease lies not with hospitals but with those who handle public hygiene and preventive medicine. Likewise, the answer to crime lies in a metamorphosis of society so as to engender in every constituent part a deeper and much more acute social consciousness.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that we have completed the third of 46 debates. I have very much in mind those who have drawn a lowly place and still hope some time during the night to have the opportunity of raising grievances. Brief speeches will help.

Orders of the Day — BRITISH RAILWAYS (SHIPBUILDING CONTRACT)

9.48 p.m.

Mr. William Hamilton: The legal luminaries have had their say, and I hope that we shall be a lot briefer in this debate.
Last weekend a storm in a teacup broke out in our newspapers, especially the Scottish newspapers, about British Railways' decision to place a contract for the building of a car ferry ship with an Italian firm of shipbuilders. We had some instant politics from the expected quarters, especially the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor). Incidentally, we were all very sorry to learn of his sudden illness last Monday evening, and very much hope

that he will be with us when we return after the Summer Recess. I can sometimes make an effort to enjoy his clowning, and I would have dearly loved to hear his contribution to this debate.
The hon. Member's snap judgment on this matter was to deplore the fact that a State-aided industry could be allowed to give orders to foreign firms. The question he implied was, if it did it, how could others be persuaded to be patriotic? That seemed to be the gist of his criticism of British Railways. The inference was that, in all circumstances, irrespective of costs, delivery date or any other commercial consideration, nationalised industries must not be allowed to place contracts with foreign firms.
I wonder whether those who propound the principle would expect private industry to adopt it. Of course they would not. My view is that we cannot possibly shackle nationalised industries—nor, indeed, any other kind of industry—in that way. Nationalised boards and public corporations are given statutory rights to exercise their commercial judgment in the day-to-day management of their affairs. Quite often, that is the answer given in this House when we question decisions made by them and I suspect that the same answer will be given tonight. We have all accepted that principle in this House and it could not possibly be otherwise. To shackle British Railways or any other nationalised industry in this way and, at the same time condemn them if they do not show profits is to want to keep one's cake and eat it.
One or two things need to be said about this tender. According to Mr. Gordon Stewart, of British Transport Ship Management (Scotland) Ltd., which manages the profitable Stranraer shipping services, tenders for the order were invited from both U.K. and continental firms. At the end of the day, the Italian firm won the contract because it was able to offer both a lower price and an earlier delivery date than any British yard.
According to Press reports—I do not know whether they are true—the Italian yard's delivery date was two months better than that of any other tender and this apparently was a decisive, if not the decisive, factor in awarding the contract. I have seen it reported, also, that the contract, in addition to the earlier


delivery date, was £250,000 lower than that of the next lowest tender. If that is so, it represents a considerable fraction of the £2·5 million total capital cost of the ships.
The argument has been used that the tender should not have been accepted because Italian shipbuilders are subsidised by up to 15 per cent. of the cost of a ship. I do not know whether this is true. As The Times Business Supplement pointed out yesterday, that argument involves the right of anyone, whether a private person or a public organisation, to buy in the most economical way.
It is also worth pointing out that our own shipbuilding industry is far from standing on its own feet, unaided by Government subventions of one kind or another. Despite these benefits and the competitive edge given by devaluation, British shipowners still buy half their tonnage from foreign yards. This may be due to the fact, as pointed out in The Times—that, thanks largely to Government assistance in rationalising and modernising the British shipbuilding industry, British yards have today such full order books that they cannot offer delivery dates as early as they might otherwise have been able to do.
I think that it is true that only one shipyard in Scotland tendered, I think one in Dundee. Certainly, Upper Clyde Shipbuilders did not tender, although invited to do so, and nor did the Scott-Lithgow Group, on the Lower Clyde, again according to reports, because demands were too heavy to enable them to meet the delivery date required by British Railways. To that extent it is a healthy sign that British yards have the largest order books that they have had for many years and, therefore, cannot offer as early delivery dates as some foreign yards.
But this is a highly competitive business and we have been losing ground. Other countries have long order books and they can meet the delivery dates more competitively than other yards. Japan, West Germany, Sweden and others are beating us in this respect.
I have no time in this debate, and nor am I competent, to apportion blame for this uncertainty within the industry as between management and the trade unions. I conclude by saying that it is

important to keep the problem in perspective. I have not come here to criticise British Railways, and it is as well to keep this matter in proportion.
This ship is to cost £2½ million. According to a Written Answer in HANSARD this morning, British Railways have purchased 72 ships since nationalisation of which only four have been bought from foreign yards. Putting it another way, the £2½ million is in the context of shipbuilding orders of about £700 million, and so it is a minute fraction of the total.
Because international competition in this industry is so fierce, it is not surprising that some United Kingdom orders go overseas, and vice versa. International trade is very much a two-way traffic and we must not be afraid of international competition. We must equip ourselves to meet the challenges arising from it, and that applies not least to the shipbuilding industry. I hope that that is one of the lessons, and probably the most important lesson, to be learned from this exercise.

9.59 p.m.

Sir Arthur Vere Harvey: I do not disagree with the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton). In the main, I thought that he was right. However, one or two things have to be put into perspective. If Britain is to go into the Common Market, we have to get used to this sort of thing, except that it should be a two-way traffic.
It was during Mr. Harold Macmillan's time as Prime Minister that it was laid down that the nationalised industries should operate like any other concern. It does not always happen. They have many advantages over an ordinary publicly-owned company, for they have easier access to funds and in times like these when there is a squeeze, although they are affected, it is not as hard on them as on others. A short time ago B.O.A.C. had losses of more than £100 million written off and the figure for B.E.A. was more than £80 million. It is a curious way to run a company—after 15 or 18 years to write off £100 million and start again. We should all like to be able to run a business like that.
British Rail was quite right. It wanted delivery to fit in with a season and it was offered a big price advantage. But it is a reflection on the British yards. I do not want to criticise what they have


done, because in the last century we built probably the best ships in the world. I remember travelling on an Italian shipping company's 20,000-ton liner from Hong Kong just before the war and learning that it had been built on the Clyde. The Italians were buying British liners then, but they have come a long way since.
It is a reflection not just on the trade unions—although only a short time ago there were 21 different unions in the yards—but also on management. Both are to be criticised. I do not want to be drawn into another matter, but I am sorry that the Government did not proceed with their legislation a short time ago—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot discuss legislation in this debate.

Sir A. V. Harvey: I said that I did not want to be drawn away, and I thought that you were probably watching me, Mr. Speaker.
The order books are full, but many of these orders are not profitable. The shipyards rushed to get them rather than have empty yards, but frequently through bad planning and indifferent management, the work is unprofitable. That is not a good thing when yards in Scandinavia, Germany and Japan are getting profitable orders. Once the yards have become computerised and have got their sub-contracting right, once the industry has been rationalised, I am sure that British yards will be able to compete with any in the world.
A Greek shipowner who had ordered a British cargo ship said recently, "I had to pay more for it, but when I got my ship it did not have to go back shortly after for rectifications." From Continental yards ships often have to go back again after a short time for rectifications, which is very inconvenient for the shipping company.
British Railways on this occasion were right. One can say many things about them in other spheres, but I wish them well. I hope that they will get the ship on time and that we will shortly be supplying Italian companies with British ships.

10.3 p.m.

Mr. William Hannan: In view of the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr.

William Hamilton) and of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey), I can also be brief. When this news broke last weekend there was understandable concern among those who would have expected that ships for Stranraer and Larne would be built either on the Clyde or in Belfast. Naturally, one gets protestations in letters and telegrams.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton—

Mr. William Hamilton: Withdraw!

Mr. Hannan: I certainly withdraw that reflection.
Of course I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West that the responsible Minister should have the opportunity of clarifying the situation. No Press statement was available to me at that time. Government loans and grants are already available to the shipyards. I agree that our criticism must be directed towards that quarter. I do not agree that, irrespective of price and/or delivery dates, all contracts should go automatically to British shipyards.
I would be prepared to support a decision that a contract should go to an area affected by high unemployment if there is a small margin in the tenders, because in that event social considerations are involved. Given that British Railways are subsidised, in an event such as that which I have described they would be helping to subsidise a development area.
Are Italian shipyards subsidised to the extent of 10 per cent. or 15 per cent., as the Press has reported? It is true that the margin was £250,000?

Mr. John Brewis: Is not what the hon. Gentleman is saying a point which should be taken up with Scottish shipyards? Practically none of the shipyards in Scotland tendered.

Mr. Hannan: I want to leave that to the Minister. Various statements have been made about the number of tenders which were made. It has been said that one Scottish shipyard tendered, but The Scotsman of the 18th said that no Scottish shipyard had tendered. Why did not more English and Scottish shipyards tender? Not all of them have full order books. Mr. Heffer spent the whole of his first year with U.C.S. scouring around for orders, so I can understand that that concern has a full order book.
Norman Sloan, Director of the Shipbuilders and Repairers National Association, has said:
We are vary disappointed a nationalised body should go abroad, particularly to a country where the shipbuilding industry is heavily subsidised such as Italy.
The quotation from the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) has been made. Both statements direct criticism at a nationalised body—or the State—for placing these orders abroad. We are directing our fire at the wrong target. It is not the body placing the orders which we should criticise, but the shipbuilding industry which is compelling this because it is not able to produce either at the price or by the date required. The industry is nationalised to the extent that it receives £50 million from the Shipbuilding Industry Board. It is wrong to sneer or level criticism at British Railways or other nationalised bodies for placing orders abroad. It is disappointing that British shipyards are unable or unwilling to tender.
Some of the revelations made by the Minister of Technology to recent committees about the lack of proper accountability and of efficiency in some shipyards prompt me to ask: what urgent steps are being taken to end this miserable state of affairs?
There are considerations in relation to E.F.T.A. and others of our European partners which I will not now develop.
In many directions private industry as well as nationalised industry, such as B.E.A. and B.O.A.C., is lapping up subsidies, grants and loans and holding out the begging bowls for more. So let us get a sense of balance in this matter.
British Railways have been receiving some assistance. Under the 1968 Act, social grants were provided for lines which had not been paying their way but for which there was a social necessity. Capital has been written down to save interest charges.
There is a dividing line here. I speak not only for myself but, I think, for quite a number of hon. Members in saying that we find increasing difficulty in getting Questions past the Table. Ministers have difficulty. If I may say so, I think that

some of our officials of the House are finding increasing difficulty in finding that dividing line between the responsibility of Ministers in this field—the responsibility, for example, of the Minister of Transport as against that of the Minister of Technology. Even tonight, when the reply to this debate is to be given by my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, a colleague of mine from Glasgow, one would have thought that this might more properly have been the job of the Ministry of Technology.
I end by drawing attention to a very good letter which appeared in the Glasgow Herald only last week. It called attention to this problem but in another sector. It was written by a man who belongs to a different political party to myself and who is a well-known figure in the Clyde—Mr. Finlay Hart. He draws attention to the fact that
In February of this year the Athel Line ordered four specialised tankers from Sweden. The Lyle Shipping Company in the same month ordered a bulk carrier from Norway. Half of the 24 new ships on order for P. and O. are to be built in foreign yards. The Scottish company, H. Hogarth and Sons, Ltd., ordered a 22,000-ton bulk carrier from Norway, also in February.
In May it was reported that France will build a 10,000-ton ferry worth £4·5 million for a British company.
And so it goes on.
I think that much of the criticism concerning British Railways, when seen in perspective and in retrospect, is of less importance than it appears. Nevertheless, these criticisms have been made and I shall be pleased to hear answers to some of the queries which I have put to my hon. Friend.

10.13 p.m.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: I should like, first, to join the hon. Member for Fife. West (Mr. William Hamilton) in very much regretting the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) from the debate tonight. I hope that he will soon return to the House and be fit and well again.
I have been astonished to hear the hon. Member for Fife, West and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan), knowing the state of unemployment in Scotland, speaking as they have done. I have gone into this matter in some detail and I am sure that they will


listen and forgive me if I correct them a little on some of the points they have made.
The background to this debate is surprising. The Government set up the Geddes inquiry into the state of our shipbuilding industry in 1965 and it reported the following year. As a result, the Shipbuilding Industry Board was set up and was finally incorporated in June, 1967. The board was set up on the recommendation of the Geddes inquiry to help our shipbuilding industry and, according to its first report, it is costing the taxpayer £80,000 per annum.
It is, perhaps, a matter of regret that we have only one report yet published by the Shipbuilding Industry Board, that is, the report for its first year, which was up to 31st March, 1968. The report was published in July, 1968—or, rather, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed then; but it was not available to Members or to the public until some months after that. It is a great pity that the second report is not available, because in a debate like this it would have been extremely useful.
However, it appears from Answers to Questions in the House that £9·3 million have been expended in grants by the Government to help our shipbuilding industry, and in addition to that, over £14 million have been made available to our shipyards by way of loans. In other words, over £25 million up to date have been made available to our shipyards in order to assist them.
The hon. Member for Maryhill referred to the help which British Railways are getting from the Government, and he called it small help. The "small help" which British Railways receive from the Government comes to about £150 million per annum—£150 million. Their working deficit is between £80 million and £90 million and has been so for many years past. I have a copy of the accounts to hand, but will simply summarise them to shorten my remarks.
On the working deficit of between £80 million and £90 million accrued interest charges require £150 million per annum, to keep our railways solvent, and also, under the Transport Acts of 1968 and 1962, to which the hon. Member referred, £487 million in 1962 and a further £1,262 million were written off British Railways' accumulated deficit, a total of £1,750

million. This is a very considerable sum of money, particularly when one looks at British Railways' accounts and finds that the total value of their assets is only £1,512 million.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Member will link what he is saying to the fact that British Railways have ordered an Italian ship.

Mr. McMaster: You have anticipated me, Mr. Speaker, because the next point I was coming to was the efficiency of British Railways, because one may justifiably question the efficiency of a company which is running such colossal deficits.
As to this order, British Railways issued their invitation to tender in March of this year after considerable dilly dallying. They had been leasing a Norwegian ship. They must have known for some time that they would require another ship for this route. When they issued their Press release on Friday of last week they said that one of the reasons they did not order from a British shipyard was the delay in delivery.
They invited tenders in March, 1969. In May, tenders were supplied by three British shipyards. The shipyard in my own constituency, Harland and Wolff's, was one of those shipyards. The order, however, was not placed for a further three months, not until July when the announcement was made.

Mr. John Rankin: Could the hon. Gentleman say which the other two were?

Mr. McMaster: I do know the names of the other two, but I was given them in confidence, and, therefore, I prefer not to disclose them at this stage, but I think that the hon. Member, who knows the ropes of the British shipbuilding industry, could easily discover them. One was in Scotland, the other on the Tyne.
The three shipyards, and particularly that in my own constituency, felt extremely aggrieved when they saw the British Railways' Press handout complaining that the order had been placed in Italy because quicker delivery was available there.
I would ask the Minister whether he would endeavour to find out whether British Railways did receive tenders and


whether, after three months, having decided they could not on those terms order this boat, they went back to any of the three yards to ask if it could expedite delivery. My information is that they did not. The boat is to be delivered and to be in service in the late spring of 1971. I am told that, if the order had been placed in Belfast, the boat could have been delivered by the summer of 1971. So the difference is only a matter of three months, and three months has already been wasted by British Railways in making up their mind whether or not to order the ship.

Mr. James Hamilton: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House the difference between the tenders put in by Harland and Wolff and the company which received the order?

Mr. McMaster: The hon. Gentleman probably knows that it is extremely difficult to get the precise information which one requires on orders for ships. The shipbuilders are perhaps a little at fault. If they want to attack, they should provide precise information to the public. I believe that the lowest tender was less than £200,000 more.
My next point is on credit terms, which might be vital. Hon. Members will remember how we fought in the House with the Board of Trade for the credit terms which are extended to overseas shipowners who place orders in Britain to be extended to British owners. The Minister gave way and introduced the home credit terms agreement, under which the special terms, 5½ per cent., would be extended to British shipowners, but these terms do not apply to British Railways.
Why do they not apply to British Railways? If British Railways order a ship in Britain must they borrow at the market rate of 9 or 10 per cent.? What rates are being offered in Italy, and what credit terms? Why can British shipyards not match the credit terms offered abroad when building a ship for British Railways, in the same way as they can in building a ship for any other British shipowner?
Another just cause of grievance suffered by British yards is that there is a 4 or 5 per cent. differential in credit. This is vital, because the cost of the ship is only £2½ million, and the difference in price

between the Italian contract and the British tender is not more than 4 or 5 per cent.
I wish to refer to a point which has already been raised, the practice of the Italians of subsiding their shipbuilding industry. Many hon. Members besides myself have frequently asked the Board of Trade about this. I am sorry that neither the Minister of Technology nor the President of the Board of Trade is present, because this is a vital matter involving many millions of pounds of the taxpayers' money.
The United States has carried out a survey and published a document, which is headed "Maritime subsidies, 1969". It has been prepared by the United States Department of Commerce, and contains the following interesting paragraph:
Construction subsidy or aid
To offset the difference between Italian construction costs and those in foreign shipyards, subsidy of about 15 per cent. of the cost of a vessel is paid directly to the shipyard for the construction of merchant ships (including those built for foreign registry) based on the type and cost of the ship to be built.
If my arithmetic is correct, a contract for £2½ million with a subsidy of 15 per cent. works out at £350,000—considerably more than the difference in price between the British and the Italian tender.
This is the Italian subsidy. Although the British shipbuilding industry has received a good deal of help from the Shipbuilding Industry Board we offer no similar subsidy to our shipyards.

Mr. Donald Dewar: rose—

Mr. Speaker: As I said earlier, interventions prolong speeches. This is the fourth of 40 debates.

Mr. McMaster: These figures relating to subsidy are borne out by other sources, namely, in the O.E.C.D. and E.E.C. bulletins. I ask the Government to look carefully at this matter of the subsidies offered by foreign yards 
I should like to refer, lastly, to the price of steel, which is a matter that is greatly tied up with this contract. The hon. Member for Fife, West said that he felt that British Railways should be free to buy ships abroad if they were quoted a better price. Why, then, should our shipyards not be free to buy steel abroad


if they can buy it more cheaply? What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
About 2,000 tons of steel are involved. This will be a loss to the British steel industry since the Italians are unlikely to buy their steel from Britain. particularly as there is a considerable difference between the price of steel one can buy on the Continent and the price of steel in this country. The basic price of steel here, following the recent rise in steel prices, is £48 10s. a ton. When one adds to that the extras in regard to quantity, and so on, the average works out at around £53 a ton.
This is to be compared with the lower continental prices. I have done some research and I have found that in Germany the basic price quoted is £43 a ton as against £48 10s. here. But when Germany quotes a basic price it is entirely different from the British basic price. It is a basic price after deductions are made for quantity and similar matters. With British steel, those extras are added on to the basic price. British shipbuilding companies now find that they are paying £53 per ton, whereas the Germans are paying £43 a ton, a difference of £10 a ton.
The British shipbuilding industry is not allowed to buy its steel abroad. it

is an Alice in Wonderland situation when our shipbuilding industry is hampered in this way and at the same time has to face competition from subsidised competitors which buy their steel at a lower price.
The Minister of State, in this House on 21st May, said that he would not see the British shipbuilding industry sold down the river. The Government, of course, own British Railways, they own the British Steel Corporation, and have a substantial interest in the British shipbuilding industry. Compare the situation of the Government to that of a large industrialist who buys a manufacturing subsidiary and then, instead of ordering the goods he needs in that manufacturing subsidiary, orders them outside, leaving his own subsidiary to lose money and capacity. This is a ridiculous position.
Our shipyards have lost a substantial order in this contract and our steel industry has also lost a substantial order. Furthermore, both industries have suffered a loss of prestige. Perhaps more serious in our current economic state is the fact that our balance of payments will lose about £2½ million in 1971. For these reasons I ask the Government to look at this order very carefully, since it is a vital one for this country. It certainly should not go to Italy.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Donald Dewar: I cannot entirely agree with the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) over the importance in financial terms, of this order. In many ways it is not a matter deserving a great deal of the time of the House if it is looked at in isolation. Obviously, in the context of order books in the British shipbuilding industry £2,500,000 is a very small matter. It is right to raise the issues if only because of the widespread Press and public controversy when this contract was placed, certainly in my part of Scotland. We saw a large number of conflicting emotions expressed—incompatible reactions in many cases—and a whole plethora of what I can only describe as alibis being trotted out by the various interests in shipbuilding.
What we are trying to do is to get my hon. Friend to comment on the general practice of British Railways and upon the kind of questions which this raises about the world of shipbuilding and its relations with the Government. The idea was put about, and it was very widely implied that in some way the industry had been let down by the British Railways Board, by a nationalised industry, and therefore, at one remove, by the Government. The Press, on 18th July, was studded with such words as "shocking", "astonishing" "astounding". This is extremely unfair. I accept the general point put forward by one or two hon. Friends and one hon. Member opposite, that if we are to talk in this emotive language it would be fairer to say that the British Railways Board were let down by the shipbuilding industry, and not vice versa.
It is self-evident that we have to allow the nationalised industries to run themselves, within defined limits and with certain exceptions, as efficiently as possible and according to the best available commercial practice. It is hopeless if their judgment is to be constantly inhibited and if the inevitable financial difficulties of British Railways are to be compounded by deliberate Government policy. I was surprised to discover that in Scotland a number of prominent Tories seem to have taken the opposite point of view.
My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) has already referred to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor). In passing, I would say that I too, was extremely sorry to read about his sudden illness. I know that he would have particularly enjoyed being here. If I may say so, without being misunderstood, we miss his particular brand of personal populism. On this issue, however, he spoke for a great number of people in Scotland when he suggested that this contract should not have been allowed to go abroad. His sentiments were echoed by the Scottish T.U.C. General Secretary, Mr. Jack, who said:
This is most disconcerting, a nationalised industry placing an order overseas. I can hardly believe it has been done without there being a nod of approval somewhere, and that nod should not have been given.
My view is that there may he cases when we have to distort the play of the free market, but these are rare. I seem to be defending basic Tory principles at this point. A large proportion of the House would agree, though I have doubts that in the aircraft industry, for example, there are circumstances when buying British is necessary. These are very special cases. By and large, I would like to think that there is near enough agreement in supporting the general principle that the British Railways Board was forced, perhaps sadly, to take the tender which most suited its particular needs, and which was the one most financially attractive.
Clearly, if we depart from this we will constantly be trying to raise ourselves by our boot straps. If we are to invite the world to go in for a "beggar my neighbour" round we will be one of the first countries to suffer when world trade is cut back. We, above all, cannot afford to show a lead in anything which will look like restrictive practices or general protectionism. We are constantly looking, successfully in some cases, unsuccessfully in others, for foreign orders. It would not be in our interests to try to force our people to confine their purchasing to Britain.
The tragedy is that the British Railways Board was left with no alternative but to go to these Venice shipbuilders. It is all very well to say that of the 72


ships that the Board has ordered since 1948, 68 were from British yards. The interesting point is that the four exceptions were all recent orders. What must be worrying is whether in this specialised sphere at least there is an unwillingness to tender by British shipbuilders and that, when they do, they are not competitively priced.
I recognise that there has been much reference to the Italian shipbuilding industry in, for example, the statement made by Mr. Norman Sloan, the director of the Shipbuilders and Repairers' Association. But I do not think that many hon. Members can claim any specialist knowledge of the Italian shipbuilding industry. I am personally surprised to hear how heavily it is claimed that it is subsidised. To my knowledge, the Italian shipbuilding industry has never been a great force in world markets. Italy is not a great shipbuilding nation. Also, Venice is a northern Italian centre and it would not benefit from the marked attempts to encourage industrial development in southern Italy 
The hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) asked: it is not up to the shipbuilders to bring forward a case? He is quite right. If they think that there is heavy unfair competition from Italian yards, it is up to them to produce a good documented case which explains how it is worked and in what way it is unfair—whether it is the equivalent of dumping. If they do, I am sure that they will get a hearing from the Minister. It may be impossible or not practicable to do anything about it, but at least they will be able to negotiate a defined problem on all fours. It is no good prating on in general terms, as Mr. Sloan does, about "at least 10 per cent. and possibly 15 per cent." without coming and laying it on the table and saying, "Here is the situation and here is our exact complaint."
If we are honest in talking about subsidisation, we should remember that a large part of the shipbuilding industry in Britain falls in development areas, and an interesting argument could arise about the extent to which we subsidise our shipbuilders. I do not want to go into this in great depth, but there are investment allowances, regional employment premium, and S.E.T., which means 37s. 6d. for every male worker, and of course,

they are all male workers in the shipyards.
The hon. Member for Belfast, East referred to the excellent credit facilities which are generally available. Considering the advantage that the shipbuilding industry ought to have got from devaluation, the really depressing and alarming thing is not the loss of this one small order, but the secret fear that in some way this is typical of the complete failure of the shipbuilding industry to cash in on the great incentives and encouragement which have been offered by successive Governments.
I find the explanations which have been offered anything but satisfactory. Why were there only three tenders? It is fair to say that many of our shipbuilders have full order books. I wish that I could say that they were profitable. In many cases they are not. In terms of employment and keeping the industry going, if not viable, at least that is some encouragement. But we are in a situation where promises of delivery have become a nightmare of good intentions unfulfilled in too many cases 
Hon. Members, perhaps not representing shipbuilding constituencies, are nevertheless still heavily involved in the argument about this problem, because the House is constantly asked, through the Shipbuilding Industry Board and the money supplied to it, and so on, to allocate further subsidy and further support for an industry, which, I suspect, is not responding as it should.
I do not want to labour the point at length. In Scotland, it is a sensitive sphere for obvious reasons. Upper Clyde Shipbuilders is in the process of swallowing up about £18 million of public funds. I strongly support the Government's action in coming to its rescue and preserving it.
The really alarming point about it is that this group of well-known yards, famous names in Scottish industry, familiar in every household, firms which represent, or should represent all that is fine, or supposed to be fine in Scottish industry, or everything that the Scots themselves think their yards should represent, has been shown up in so many ways to be utterly unsatisfactory, and, to put it at its plainest, quite blatantly inefficient.
I do not know how many hon. Members have followed this, but perhaps I might give two examples of what I mean. I refer to the evidence given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology to the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs when talking about the U.C.S., and its legacy of disastrously uneconomic contracts. He said at page 257:
I think the reason for that broadly was that there were no proper figures kept by the constituent companies at all. This has been one of the great nightmares of shipbuilding. The U.C.S. management, a highly professional management, very largely brought in from outside"—
my right hon. Friend means from outside the industry—
took over constituent companies which had kept no proper records at all and were not able to anticipate what the cost of discharging contracts would be. Many of the inherited losses that have come to light derive from the fact that the constituent companies did not know what price was the right price to quote for a ship
That is only one group, only one case study, but it raises interesting—

Mr. Rankin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not want to distract my right hon. Friend, or to direct him along lines other than those he is following, but he is now on a topic which, in my view, does not come within the province of the Minister of Transport, and I wonder whether we can expect an answer to what he is saying from a Minister who has no responsibility for this topic.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am grateful to the hon. Member for guiding me about what is in order. When the hon. Member who has the Floor gets out of order, I shall call him to order, but I have no power to insist on the Minister answering a particular part of his argument.

Mr. Dewar: I think that the point I am making is self-evident. This one important part of the industry which has been under the microscope recently has, to put it kindly, been found wanting. I do not know to what extent this is the general picture, but given our rather disappointing place in the race for this order, one begins to wonder what is happening in other areas of the industry which have not been in such spectacular trouble in the last months.
The hon. Member for Belfast, East was right in saying that we do not like to

see orders going abroad. One of the main justifications of the support for the industry is import substitution, and it is a pity to see all our hopes jeopardised, but the point that we have to decide, and which the Goverment at the end of the day have to decide, is whether the British Railways Board could not buy British because the industry is facing unfair competition from abroad, or whether it is because, in some way, the industry is still suffering from what my right hen. Friend the Minister of Technology described as
inadequate management and bad industrial relations, poor capital equipment, and inadequate marketing
I suspect that there may be a great deal of the second still about, and the trouble is that the Shipbuilding Industry Board has neither the technical resources nor the remit to oversee the day-to-day management and operations of the firms and units in the industry it financially helps.
We in this House are in the unfortunate situation of being asked to authorise the supply of public money on a continuing basis without really having the machinery to make sure that we get results for the sums that we are spending. This is a most embarrassing and awkward position. I only hope that the little matter—and I think that it in itself it is a little matter—of the placing of the order for the Stranraer-Larne ferry will persuade the Government to look again at the kind of cost-effectiveness of the aid that we are giving to this industry. I want to spend heavily on having a viable shipbuilding industry, but I want to be sure that within the foreseeable future it will be viable. I only hope that we will get something like the assurance that we want in the months ahead.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. John Brewis: I find myself in the rather unusual position of agreeing to a large extent with the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar), not least in his good wishes for the recovery of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor), and also very much in agreement with what was said by the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton).
I do not wish to enter into a general discussion on the position of the shipbuilding industry, but rather to put before


the House one or two factors showing why we need this boat for the Larne-Stranraer crossing quickly. I think that everyone in Stranraer would like the boat to be built in a Scottish shipyard, and, if not in a Scottish yard, by Harland and Wolff, because this crossing is in a sense an international one. Half belongs to Scotland, half to Northern Ireland, and most of those using it come from England. When British Railways are able to place a new order for £250,000 less, as a nationalised industry, they are entitled to get that benefit of the deal, especially as so few British firms tendered.
This crossing is very profitable and the trade is booming. It carries about half a million passengers a year. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) suggested that a delay of two months would not make much difference, but the Italian shipyard can deliver the boat in the spring and if it is available in the spring and summer it can provide about one-third more capacity on this busy crossing.
That makes a tremendous difference. Not only will it mean more employment for people in Northern Ireland and in Scotland—which is a chief consideration, because we have a very high rate of unemployment on both sides of the channel—but it will replace the Swedish boat at present on the crossing. The Swedish boat which is on charter is comparatively small. It does not carry nearly so many cars as will be carried by the new boat and it is chartered at just under £1,000 a day payable in Swedish kroner.
Having this boat two or three months earlier, in time for the holiday season, and replacing the Swedish boat, represents good business for British Railways. I support the decision.

10.48 p.m.

Mr. Hugh D. Brown: The two points I wish to make have not been covered in detail. This is a rather unusual debate. It would be difficult for a stranger listening to it to decide on which side, concerning party, hon. Members spoke. This has disturbed me and I have been trying to discover the reason.
We are indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) for initiating the debate, for

this is a matter worth discussing. I find it odd that the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster), although he has excellent research facilities concerning Harland and Wolff and Short Bros., should merely use the occasion virtually for an attack on any kind of publicly-owned body without any recognition of the substantial amount of Government money going not only to Harland and Wolff, but to Northern Ireland as a whole. One must be fair.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) is not present. All of us, although we detest his politics, have a genuine liking for him. I am all the more sorry that he is not present—I say this to the hon. Lady the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher)—because he speaks with some authority on behalf of the Conservative Party in Scotland on shipbuilding matters. It would have been interesting if an hon. Member opposite could say that he either was or was not speaking officially for the party.

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher: My view on the matter is rather different from that which my hon. Friend took. I take the view that British Railways are fully entitled to purchase their ships at the lowest price and the earliest delivery dates. I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving me the opportunity to make that clear.

Mr. Brown: I do not know whether the Scottish people will be told what is official Opposition policy., and if the hon. Member for Cathcart reads it I hope that it will not retard his recovery.
It is true that a delivery date in the spring is important, but why have British Railways taken so long to place the order? Why was the ship not ordered sooner? There may be a good answer, and the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) may know it, but I do not know it—and I should like to know it. This is an emotional subject. Why are we hiring this Swedish ship? Why are we involved in this loss of foreign currency? What about the credit facilities?
All hon. Members apparently argue—although I have some reservations on the subject—that publicly-owned bodies and nationalised industries should be completely free to use their commercial judgment. But do they suffer any disadvantages in credit facilities compared with


others who wish to buy ships? There is no point in the hon. Member for Belfast, East telling us about the losses of British Railways if he then argues that they are not even to have equality of treatment in the buying of ships.
Leaving aside the problems of British Railways, the question surely is: why cannot the customer get what he wants from a British yard? What about other companies which are buying abroad? What is their excuse? British Railways have some excuse, because they are under pressure from ill-informed and malicious critics in the Opposition who are always breathing down their necks and who offer no recognition of the uneconomic services which the railways have to provide.
There are a few such services in Galloway and Northern Ireland. I do not think that there is a service in Scotland which pays its way. That is why we resent the ill-informed, prejudiced views of the hon. Member for Cathcart when he makes his public statements. It is high time that the Conservative Party either disciplined him, or makes it clear that he speaks for no one but himself.

Sir A. V. Harvey: The hon. Member regretted the illness of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor). Now he is attacking him in his absence. He is being a little unfair. Why does he not get on with the debate?

Mr. Brown: The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) does not know the love-hate relationship between myself and the hon. Member for Cathcart.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Despite the love-hate relationship, the hon. Member should get back to the subject.

Mr. Browns: When an hon. Member intervenes, and is so insulting to me, Mr. Speaker, I am entitled to defend myself. The hon. Member for Cathcart knows me well enough to realise that if he has any complaint to make, I will withdraw anything which offends him, but I will leave him to decide that.
I am coming to the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey). He talks about the Conservatives now being in favour of the commercial judgment of nationalised industries. [An HON. MEMBER: "We always were."] A sig-

nificant reason why British shipbuilding is in a mess is precisely the attitude of the hon. Member for Macclesfield and his kind. In shipbuilding on the Clyde there have been plenty of well-bred bowler hats, but not enough brains beneath them. This has been a family tradition. Where have the subsidies been in the past? There is surely some significance in the fact that Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, a private concern, is in a bit of a mess because in the past Clyde shipbuilders have been feather-bedded as a private enterprise concern by tax-payers money. It is no coincidence that the Public Accounts Committee drew attention to the fact that Denny's, for example, always seemed to get all British Railways' contracts. It is now bankrupt. It did not object to taking taxpayers' money; it was a lucrative contract.
It is significant that Fairfield's used to get all the Caledonian Steam Packet orders. It was good, profitable public money. This was in the good old days, when hon. Members opposite were in complete control of everything. It is more than just a coincidence that the John Brown shipyard received all the Cunard orders, or that Yarrow's received all the defence contracts—all with public money. They have been so used to taking it from the taxpayer that they are quite inefficient.
I will not be tempted into the aircraft industry, but I suspect that there is a wee bit of that—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must resist temptation at once.

Mr. Brown: There is no fun if one does not have a little temptation sometimes, Mr. Speaker.
I think that I have made the two points I started out to make—the delay in ordering and the credit facilities. I suppose that we are all nationalists at heart here. Probably everyone who comes from Glasgow and the West of Scotland has nostalgic memories of sailing up and down the Clyde. My father worked all his life in Harland and Wolff, and I know a little about the firm. Some of the most reactionary employers in the world were the Clyde shipbuilders. Therefore, I say with some feeling that I regret that the 500,000 passengers sailing backwards and forwards from Stranraer to Larne, one of the nicest sails


that one can have in summer when it is calm, should have to look at a plaque saying that the ship was built in Italy. This is not just being narrowly patriotic. While we all want commercial judgments for publicly-owned bodies, I always hope to see them being tempered by some kind of social responsibility, unlike private enterprise in the past.
Therefore, I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to give us assurances that the policy of commercial judgment tempered by social responsibility has been applied in this case.

10.59 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: I shall be very brief. I support the commercial judgment of British Railways in this matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) questioned their judgment and made some allegations about the Italians subsidising their shipping. Those are matters that I will not go into. Perhaps the Minister can comment on them.
I want to comment on some of the speeches from the Government benches about what they suppose to be policies of the Conservative Party. They have no warrant for the sort of things they have said, particularly the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton). The Conservative Party view about nationalisation has always been perfectly clear, especially about British Railways.
I think that I have taken part in every debate in the House concerning British Railways since 1950. Our view has always been clear. We do not like nationalisation. We do not want to extend it. Where possible we wish to diminish it, but where it exists we want it to be efficient. We do not want it to be at a disadvantage compared with private industry, but we do not expect it to have any advantage compared with private enterprise by being nationalised.
That was clear from the beginning and it was this side which criticised the Labour Party when it was in power in Government, in 1947, for the ambiguous words it put into the Transport Act, 1947, words which put the British Transport Commission in rather a doubtful position as to exactly what its duties were. When it came to 1962 we revised that and made it clear. The 1962 Act says, in Section 3, that

It shall be the duty of the Railways Board in the exercise of their powers under this Act to provide railway services in Great Britain and, in connection with the provision of railway services, to provide such other services and facilities as appear to the Board to be expedient.…
Section 5 gives the railways power to provide shipping.
In debate in the Committee it was made clear what was to happen under that Act. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) moved an Amendment. I spoke second in the debate and said:
'This Bill is a break with the past and it is, I hope, an intentional variation of the Act of 1947 as amended by the Act of 1953. The Act of 1953 altered the Act of 1947 quite substantially…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 1st February, 1962, c. 387.]
My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Hay) confirmed that I was right when he said:
…what we are trying to do is to provide a completely new duty for the Railways Board, in the light of that situation in the past"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E. 1st February, 1962, c. 415.]
He went on to say that we were removing the common carrier obligation and the control of fares and charges outside London.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House knows the hon. Member's wealth of knowledge on the subject, but he must come to the topic which we are discussing.

Mr. Wilson: The point I was making was that previous speeches in this debate have indicated that the Opposition were seeking some limitation on the commercial freedom of the Railways Board to carry out its purposes. I was pointing out that as long ago as 1962 the Opposition, then the Government, gave British Railways the power to do exactly what they have done, and that in buying an Italian ship they are acting under powers given in the 1962 Transport Act.
I will not pursue this, but I will take a sentence from the next column, column 416 of the Standing Committee report, in which my hon. Friend the Member for Henley said that we had deliberately omitted any reference to the individual needs of industry and that we did not wish to complicate the task of the Railways Board. That is exactly why the 1962 Act amended the 1947 and 1953 Acts. We wanted the board to act in a


commercial manner and that is what it has been doing now.
I will only add that in the annual Report and Accounts of British Railways for 1968 it was also made clear what would be the consequences of acting otherwise. On page 7 there is a reference to a statement by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, when he said:
in principle, their objectives are now at last virtually identical with that of a private industry, except that they will be expected to perform certain social services, but only if they are paid for doing so.
If any hon. Member wants to insist on British Railways buying a ship at a tender other than the lowest, which would be contrary to ordinary commercial judgment, British Railways would be entitled to ask the Government to pay the difference. So it would not be British Railways which would be subsidising British shipyards, but the taxpayer through an indirect subsidy. I do not think that that can be required by any hon. Member. For these reasons, assuming that the Parliamentary Secretary will answer the allegations about subsidies, I think that British Railways acted perfectly correctly in using its commercial judgment and buying a ship from the Italians a few months earlier than it could have got it from anyone else.

11.6 p.m.

Mr. John Rankin: I am fortified by the fact that you, Mr. Speaker, have allowed the line my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar) took when he dealt with Fairfield's, because I want to pursue this aspect, which is pertinent not only to what happened two years back, but is also closely allied to the situation which we find ourselves in today in the shipbuilding industry. My hon. Friend stated definitely that the Fairfield yard had failed in its purpose as a shipbuilding yard and to some extent, if not altogether, had made a mess of things and had rather mismanaged its share of the industry.
Just two years ago, when Fairfield's was still in operation as a unit, it entered into world competition for the building of a fleet of container ships. Not a single yard in England tendered as an individual unit, but a number of them formed a consortium to tender. Fairfield's got one of the ships and the others went to West Germany. The English yards, despite the

fact that they had joined together, were able to match Fairfield's offer.
That was a great achievement for Fairfield's, but before it could consummate it it had ceased to be Fairfield's and had become part of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. Then the scene changed. If I were to go much further it might be thought that I was becoming critical of U.C.S. and that would be unfair, because we all unite in doing our best to see that it succeeds.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman will link what he is saying with the decision of British Railways to buy an Italian ship.

Mr. Rankin: That was the point of order I raised when you disagreed with me, Mr. Speaker. However, I accept your Ruling and I shall try to align what I am saying with what I hope to say.
Into the Fairfield mind came the idea that if we were to be successful, particularly in an industry like shipbuilding, management and men had to work together and that the men had to know what management was thinking and that there must be communication between both. That can be done only through a chief executive officer. I brought him to the House, so that hon. Members could hear for themselves what was being done to make Fairfield's operable and successful. For two solid hours hon. Members listened entranced to the scheme he unrolled for making this shipbuilding yard a success. But the scheme was thwarted.
I still say that our present difficulties can be resolved only by following the plan which was suggested two years ago. It is obvious that the struggle to maintain our place in the shipping and shipbuilding world is becoming greater than ever. We have many competitors who have newer techniques of production and who, as a result, are making life hard for the home-based ship owner and shipbuilder.
This is borne out by the run-down of the whole system in Britain in past years, particularly on Clydeside. When a ship is built abroad and it is felt that it could have been built in this country, the protests are loud and long. It is our business to examine the merit in these protests.
Clearly, British Railways must be allowed to exercise their own judgment, but Parliament cannot easily do its duty


of inquiring into the matter without appearing to challenge that right. Ministers keep records to guide them when they deal with matters of high policy. I quote an example which I found in column 394 of HANSARD for 5th March, this year. It shows that during 1968 British shipowners placed orders overseas for 2·8 million tons of shipping worth £205 million; but that foreign orders for U.K. registered vessels were 4·6 million tons, representing £338 million, a balance in our favour of £133 million. Obviously, if the balance of £133 million lay against us, the Government would have been more interested.
We must consider other figures to get the proper picture of these purchases at home and abroad. We must consider aircraft engines, internal combustion engines, tractors and steam engines. The value of these exports was £385·4 million—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are not discussing exports in general. We are discussing the award of a British Railways' shipbuilding contract to an Italian firm. We must not widen the debate too far.

Mr. Rankin: But for our discussion to make any sense, we must understand this order, in £ s. d., against the whole background. If the claim is accepted that a ship should be built at home, should the repairers be similarly treated? The answer nowadays is generally, "No," and that the repairs should be done at the first port of call. Any other policy would severely hurt one part of the Commonwealth in particular, namely, Hong Kong. It is the first port of call for ships coming westward across the Pacific. After the battering of that phase of their journey, repairs are usually essential and Hong Kong can do them at Tai-Poo Airport—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must call the hon. Gentleman to order. We are on Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill, it is true, but we are discussing a particular subject on which his hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) has initiated a debate.

Mr. Rankin: With all respect, Mr. Speaker, and whether we like it or not, this business involves the exchange of money for imports or exports—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is percetly true, but we cannot discuss money in this debate, or imports or exports, except in so far as they are concerned with the subject which we are discussing.

Mr. Rankin: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. Ship repairing seems to be out of order, then, but shipbuilding, which is equally important and is related to ship repair, is in order—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman. This debate is about a shipbuilding contract, and that is why a discussion of this shipbuilding contract is in order.

Mr. Rankin: Then I shall leave that matter, Mr. Speaker.
But if wisdom now dictates that ship repairs should be carried out where that is commercially convenient, in the long run, this is the most profitable as well as the safest way. We do not dictate in these matters, but allow discretion to the ship repairer and to the shipowner. We must allow a similar kind of discretion to British Railways when they buy a ship.

11.19 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Bence: I do not subscribe to the view that any commercial organisation, whether State or private enterprise, should do other than buy, say, ships on terms that provide the best service for its customers.
Shipbuilding is of such importance to Glasgow and to Belfast that it forms the industrial base of those areas. A failure in shipbuilding in Belfast or on the Clyde has a demoralising effect on all the commercial interests in those areas. We should use all our foresight and give all the assistance we can to enable the Clyde shipbuilding industry to restore itself.
I do not criticise the decision of British Railways to buy a ship abroad. We are a trading nation. I would like all tariff barriers and quotas to be removed. I am basically a free trader. The more we can exchange goods across the frontiers the better for all of us. Regarding the world as one, the more that is produced wherever it is produced the better it is for all humanists. I am not a nationalist of any kind.
However, millions of pounds of the taxpayers' money is being used to improve the techniques of shipbuilding on the Clyde. Conditions are being imposed. It is suggested that shipbuilding resources on the Clyde are in excess of what is necessary and might have to be curtailed. This is unfortunate, because it is possible that world trade and, therefore, the demand for ships, will expand.
I have no objection to writing down the capital of nationalised industries. Private industry has been writing capital down for hundreds of years. In the 1930s many well-known companies wrote down their £ shares to 2s. 6d., or 5s., and thousands of shareholders lost a good deal of money. A number of people in South Wales committed suicide. Thousands of small men in South Wales were ruined when Baldwin's, whose £ shares had been written down to 5s. but which stood at 1s. 3d. in the market, went into liquidation. The writing down of capital is part of our industrial system: companies write off their costs by writing down their capital. Some of British Railways' capital has been written down, but in this case it is the taxpayers' money. With a private industry, it is the shareholders' money. However, they are all citizens of Britain. It is not novel. I do not think that the system would work unless it was done occasionally.
When public money is poured into two related industries, it behoves those industries to get together. British Railways must project its future demands. For some years it has been hiring a Swedish ship at £1,000 a day. They must have known some time ago that the ship would have to be replaced. Normally, in ordinary business circles, a projection would be made three years ahead of a new ship being required for the run. The order was not placed on the Clyde because the delivery date was a couple of months short. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) that where two public institutions are involved, one could have consulted the other months earlier. British Railways should have consulted the shipbuilding industry two or three years ago when they took the Swedish ship on charter.
Surely, at that time they projected the need for a new ship in 1969 or 1970.

Why did they not get together with the shipbuilders? A big customer like British Railways, who have bought 75 ships since 1945, should be in contact with the shipbuilding industry, particularly on the Clyde. In the climate of the situation on the Clyde, it would be the right and proper thing to engage in consultation long before tenders were requested. They should have expressed their needs and ascertained the supply potential. My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) is right to raise this matter, and my hon. Friend the Member for Provan and I would like answers to these questions.
Has there been, and is there, regular consultation between British Railways and whoever supplies its main products, such as the locomotive builders? A commercial firm projects its needs three or four years ahead and consults all kinds of manufacturers to find what is in the market and who are the potential suppliers. This continuing, evolving and developing process is followed by every big manufacturing industry. Have British Railways done that? Surely they did it with English Electric, for diesel engines and with coach builders and manufacturers of steel rails and all sorts of equipment. Had there been general liaison between the shipping side of British Railways and the shipbuilding industry, I am sure that a specification could have been evolved and arrangements made.
I do not believe that the price of steel is all that important a factor. I am not so sure whether, delivered at the shipyards, continental steel would in the long run be cheaper than British steel. I doubt it very much. Certain qualtities of steel might be different in price, but over the general range the British steel industry can stand alongside the continental industry for steel delivered at the ports. Possibly there was a lack of liaison and consultation between two great institutions. If consultations had taken place earlier and had specifications been discussed, very much like Cunard did with John Brown's, this order may well not have gone to an Italian yard.
In saying that, however. I do not want anyone to get the impression that I am in favour of featherbedding any industry to buy in the dearest market simply because it suits a local political purpose. All other things being equal, including


the delivery date and the quality of the ship, I am generally in favour of the principle that all our institutions should buy the best product they can to give the best service to their customers at the lowest possible price.

11.30 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Neil Carmichael): I think that we should all be grateful for the opportunity which my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) has given us this evening to discuss this subject. To some extent, perhaps, some of us have been surprised at the great interest it has aroused, particularly as it has been raised on the Consolidated Fund Bill, at a time when many of us are waiting for other subjects—as I am myself, for debate 20—to come along, and wondering whether they, including that debate, will be reached.
Before trying to answer some of the questions which have been raised, perhaps I may be allowed to add my own condolences to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor). We have said many things about him this evening, but all of us hope he does recover soon. If I know him, he will probably be reading HANSARD tomorrow to see just where we all went wrong.
As I said, I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and, indeed, I am to all hon. Members for the contributions which they have made to this subject. They will. perhaps, excuse me if I do not try to deal too specifically with each of the points made, for, although I am not suggesting there was repetition, the subject is a rather narrow one, and although different hon. Members approached it from different points of view, basically the answer can be narrowed down slightly if I give what, as I see it, from the Ministry's point of view, is the position of the British Railways Board, which is, after all, basically what we are discussing.
The background to this discussion is that the board has a scheme to develop the Stranraer to Larne and the Fishguard to Rosslare shipping services, and the scheme necessitates a new vessel for the Stranraer to Larne service and the modification of and transfer to the Fishguard station of one of the vessels at present serving the Stranraer-Larne route, and certain works at Fishguard. The total

gross cost of the proposal was finally estimated at £2·79 million gross.
It is worth noting that this scheme will give the Stranraer-Larne route two of the most modern vessels in the board's fleet, and a first-class service linking Scotland with Northern Ireland. I am sure that this will please the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis). I have used the service frequently. It is an excellent service, and I hope that more people from the South will start coming up to use this service, particularly with the new ship.
The consent of the Minister of Transport was sought, and it was given, since this entire project is clearly desirable. However, approval was given only to the project. It is not the practice for the Minister, nor was there any power, to specify where the orders for the ships, or whatever else might be needed for this project, should be placed.
Having decided on, and having had approval given to the scheme, the Railways Board then proceeded to seek tenders for the construction of the new ship which would be required. In accordance with its normal practice the Board sought tenders from a number of yards in this country and from yards abroad. Only four firm tenders were received—from the Italian yard, from Harland and Wolff, in Belfast, from Swan Hunter, and from Robb Caledon, in Dundee. The Italian tender was better on price and on delivery, and accordingly the Railways Board placed the order there.
This is a point we must stress. We are not discussing just price or just delivery: we are discussing the combination of the two. The case is very formidable if the two are combined. Hon. Members will realise that it would be quite wrong of me to give the comparable delivery dates or any confidential commercial information enclosed in a tender from a yard, and all I can say is that the combination of the two factors, delivery date and price, made it quite clear that the Italian offer was better.

Mr. McMaster: While not seeking to get confidential information on price, may I ask, could the hon. Gentleman tell us when approval of the project was given? Surely that is something he could tell the House? When was approval of this project given by the Ministry of Transport?

Mr. Carmichael: I would need notice of the question, when the actual approval of the capital expenditure by the board was given. It was a rather complicated scheme. It was not just a straightforward matter. That perhaps, to some extent, answers my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh B. Brown).
It was not just a straightforward job of replacing a ship. It was juggling with ships, looking at the services and the possibilities of return on the services with all the various permutations. It was a complicated matter. But as to the actual date on which final approval was given, perhaps I could write to the hon. Gentleman and let him know.
Had the board placed the order elsewhere than Italy, it which have imposed on itself an unnecessary and uncompensated hardship. The board has a primary duty to run its affairs in as efficient and economic a manner as possible. Under the circumstances, given this primary duty, it had no option but to accept the Italian offer.
It should be noted that the Railways Board has by no means a monopoly of shipping services, and since it is in competition with the private sector, which itself is not debarred from placing orders abroad, the board would not consider it right to handicap itself unnecessarily.
A number of other points could be made. The delivery date is particularly important, because it was very necessary to catch as much as possible of the summer season for 1971. I do not know the actual figures, but I am sure that a high proportion of the 500,000 passengers travel in the summer. Therefore, even a matter of months is vital if ships can be put on routes earlier in the summer rather than later.
The Railway Board's shipping operations are themselves earners of foreign exchange through its operations on the Continent. They are also an important link in the efficient movement of exports abroad, particularly to the Continent. It is expected that a considerable number of items for this ship will be of British manufacture, although at this stage neither I nor, I suppose, anyone else knows exactly what will be of British manufacture.
The Government's position from the point of view of railway policy is that what the Railways Board did was cor-

rect. The board has at last been given a realistic financial remit which should enable them to climb out of the situation of massive deficit in which the railways, generally speaking, have found themselves in the past 15 years or so.
The Government's policy for the nationalised industries is clearly that if the industries are required to act against their own interest, some form of compensation will be arranged. This point was made by the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Geoffrey Wilson), who has been involved in railway debates in this House for much longer than I have and is much more of an authority in his association with the railways.
This policy was set out in the White Paper "Nationalised Industries: a Report on Economic and Financial Objectives" (Command 3437); and it was restated in the Government's reply to the Select Committee on the Nationalised Industries (Command 4027).
In present circumstances there are no powers to prevent the Railways Board from placing orders in Italy, and there are no powers to compensate them should they agree to place orders in a United Kingdom yard. Thus, the Railways Board, which the Government have appointed, has in its considered commercial judgment decided that the Italian tender was best from the point of view of the board. The Government would not wish to disagree with the considered judgment of the board on a purely managerial matter, particularly if it were to lead to the Board doing something against its own interests.
Most hon. Members have realised the impossibility of a narrow "By British" outlook. Like other nationalised transport undertakings, the board is under no special obligation to buy British. Under various international agreements, it is obliged not to show discrimination against foreign suppliers, as in the case of E.F.T.A. The question of whether or not the practice should change in such a way that nationalised authorities should discriminate has been considered, but this country has more to lose than to gain from such a change of policy.
The U.K. shipbuilding industry's current order book stands at about £700 million, of which about £170 million-worth is for overseas registration. Therefore, it is by no means wholly a one-way trade. As a trading nation, this


country depends on exports, and our exports are someone else's imports. Any policy of restriction, especially in the face of the international agreements to which this country is a signatory, could only invite retaliation. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar) dealt with this point most effectively.
Throughout the debate there has been a suggestion that perhaps my right hon. Friend should give a general direction to the board not to accept the Italian offer. It would not be appropriate for my right hon. Friend to have used this power in the specific instance of this ship, since this is not really a general use of the power, and, therefore, is not covered by Statute. Moreover, it is perhaps doubtful whether giving such a direction would be desirable in the national interest, as the Statute clearly demands.

Mr. McMaster: Did the Government inquire into the fairness of the competition the Italian yard was offering? Was it subsidised, or was it not?

Mr. Carmichael: I feel that, here again, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South has dealt with the question most effectively.
It is true that the Italian Government pay a construction subsidy, which I believe to be about 13 per cent. for this type of ship. But it is extremely difficult to unravel what subsidies are paid at one place as compared with another. It would be very difficult in this country, with all the help given to industry generally in different parts of the country, to establish exactly what subsidy was given on a particular vessel.
It is a feature of the world shipbuilding industry that it is aided by Governments. There is probably no nation that does not subsidise its shipbuilding industry in some way. Incidentally, I understand that the report of the Shipbuilding Industry Beard up to March this year will be available in the autumn. Under the Shipbuilding Industry Act, 1967. we are making available to our shipbuilding industry financial assistance for its reorganisation, although that assistance is different in kind from a direct subsidy.
The Government hope that international agreement will be reached in O.E.C.D. on the progressive reduction and elimination of all artificial aids to

shipbuilding. They have welcomed the recent recommendations of the O.E.C.D. Council that further work should be done on this problem. I am sure that that will give great pleasure to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence), who advocated free trade.
The Railways Board, in its commercial judgment, has decided that in terms of price and delivery, as a competitive section of a highly competitive industry, it would do best to purchase the ship from the Italian yard. It would have been wrong of the Government to disagree with this.
The Upper Clyde yard was not able to tender and the chairman of the yard in the constituency of the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) was quoted as saying that the Railways Board would have to take its place at the end of the queue. The Board has been extremely fair. It asked for tenders from many yards throughout the world and accepted that from the Italian yard which was the most suitable in terms of delivery and price. This debate has shown that most hon. Members agree that the board should be exercising its commercial judgment in this way.

Orders of the Day — PENSIONLESS WIDOWS

11.49 p.m.

Mr. Bruce Campbell: I recognise that I shall have to read carefully in this debate, because of the rules governing the conduct of the debate. I shall, however, seek to draw to the attention of the House what I submit is a grave injustice which many widows suffer under our present pension arrangements. It is one of the gravest injustices in the Welfare State, of which we are justifiably proud. There are certain widows who for quite arbitrary reasons never receive a widow's pension. At is stands, the law does not allow a woman who is widowed under the age of 50 to receive any pension.
There is an exception to this rule and that is when the women was married before 1948, when she receives 30s. a week, even if she is less; than 50 when her husband dies. This is not very much because the 30s. is taxable and out of it she will have to pay, as from the date of her husband's death, National Insurance contributions which amount to 14s. 1d. a week if she is to qualify for


an ordinary pension at the age of 60. By the time that she has paid her income tax and the 14s. 1d. there is precious little of the 30s. left.
The number of women married before 1948 and still under 50 when their husbands die is rapidly decreasing and must eventually disappear. But that one exception to this harsh rule does not bring any great relief to the general suffering which this rigid age barrier of 50 brings about.
Putting the exception aside, the rule is that if a husband dies while his wife is under 50 years of age, she will get no pension, and she will not get one even when she becomes 50. The age barrier is absolutely rigid. If a widow is under 50 by even an hour, she gets no pension, and never does. So long as she reaches the age of 50 before her husband dies, even if she has reached that age by only an hour, she gets her pension. The line is drawn absolutely rigidly at the age of 50, and it causes the gravest injustices.
I was fortunate earlier in the Session in the Ballot for Private Members' Bills. I realise that I cannot refer to legislation, but I submit that I can refer to something that never became law, namely, a Bill which I introduced in the hope of remedying this injustice. Because of lack of time my Bill was never debated and has now been lost. I am, therefore, very glad to have an opportunity of ventilating the matter.
When it was known that I was introducing the Bill to which I have just referred, I received a flood of letters from all over the country from widows who have been caught by this harsh age rule. These widows have no organisation and they are not militant. They suffer in silence. Few people realise the sufferings which they endure. I came to know about them as a result of my Bill.
These days people tend to marry quite young. It is quite common for a woman to have been married for 20 or 25 years and yet still be under 50 years of age when her husband dies. I ask the House to consider the position of such a widow. For 20 or 25 years she may have been off the labour market. Indeed, if she was married very young, she may never have been on the labour market. Therefore, she has no skill and no experience

in any work outside the home. She has spent 20 or 25 years running a home, looking after her husband and possibly bringing up children—therefore, doing very important work. She may have spent the last few years before her husband's death nursing him during an illness.
But he dies when she is still in her forties. If she has no dependent children, she receives no pension. She is left alone and completely unprovided for. Her husband will, of course, have paid his contributions every week for all those years in the fond belief that his widow would get a pension, but she will not get it if she is not 50.
What does that widow do? She has to find a job. She has not been out to work for 20 or 25 years. She has no skill or experience, and yet she has to try to find a job. And if she finds a job, she has to pay National Insurance contributions to qualify for a retirement pension when she reaches the age of 60. Her position really is desperate. She has just suffered a bereavement, which is bad enough. She is possibly left with the family home, which is too big for her to live in alone, and which is possibly heavily mortgaged. She is then at the most vulnerable point in her life. She is probably in her late forties, is experiencing the change of life, and is in indifferent health. At this, the most difficult time of her life, she has to go out into the world, without any qualifications. or experience, or skill, to try to find a job.
It may be asked why a woman should get a pension simply because she is a widow, why should she be treated differently from the spinster who has never had the advantages of marriage? But that is a fallacious argument. If it were not, it would apply to all widows, even those over 50. If that argument had anything in it, there would be no case for giving any widow any pension. The real difference between the widow and the spinster is that the latter has been able to pursue her career uninterrupted by marriage and child-bearing and the years of running a home and bringing up children. She has been able to climb the ladder in some career to a point where, when she is in her forties, she is able to command a reasonable salary, but the widow has to try to begin her


life again in middle age, with no experience, and no skill, and at an age when jobs are difficult enough to come by anyway.
Industry and commerce have become much more technical. New techniques and new skills are now required, and a woman in her forties who has not been to work for many years finds it increasingly difficult, indeed sometimes impossible, to obtain anything other than the most menial employment. In the Bill which I introduced I sought to remedy this injustice by allowing a pension to be paid as from the age of 35, but at a lower rate, and on a sliding scale. I think that it was £2 at 35, increasing gradually until, at the age of 50, the widow received the normal widow's pension of £4 10s.
I could go on for a long time talking about the injustices of the present system. I could read some of the heart-rending letters I have had by which even the stoniest-hearted Minister would be moved. I realise the limitations within which I must frame my remarks. The White Paper is not good enough. Something to be done in 1972 will be too late for many of these widows; some of them will be dead then. What they want is some cash now. It would cost so little to give some relief to women placed in this difficult position.
Under the scheme I suggested, pensions on a sliding scale could have been provided at a cost to the country of less than £20 million, probably about £16 million. If the age were merely reduced to 45, which would help the most needy cases, the cost would be only £10 million. Without legislation being introduced, they could be relieved of the necessity to pay National Insurance contributions to qualify. If some means could be found of relieving them of that obligation it would be a tremendous boon to these most deserving people.
Recognising the limitations within which I speak, I urge the Minister to find some way within his administrative powers to alleviate the great suffering which these women have to endure.

12.2 a.m.

Mr. J. C. Jennings: This is a story of forgotten women, pensionless widows. I shall try to tell the story con-

cisely and simply. I realise that this subject is probably the most difficult in the list for debate in the long night ahead of us because, under the rules of order, we dare not even breathe the words "future legislation". In presenting what I consider vital facts and statistics to clarify the mind of the Minister about the lines on which he could act, I make no attempt to influence future legislation, but to encourage the Minister to seek to do what we are trying to suggest within the bounds of order.
Two salient facts have been admirably presented by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Bruce Campbell), a lawyer particularly skilled in this part of the pensions field. If a woman is over 50 when widowed, she gets £4 10s. a week if her husband has made the necessary contributions. If she is under 50, and has no dependent children and does not qualify for the 30s. pension—which we who have been in this House for a long time remember as the "Ten-shilling widow pension"—she gets no pension, but she must buy National Insurance stamps until she is 60 to obtain a pension whether she works or not.
Let us consider the second stark fact. When a man retires at the age of 65, his wife is qualified to receive a supplementary allowance irrespective of her age, but if he—her retired husband—dies before her 50th birthday she loses that allowance and gets nothing. In addition, she has to pay National Insurance contributions until she is 60. These two examples epitomise the hardship from which this type of pensioner suffers.
What is the Minister's problem? It is the age barrier of 50. I must tread carefully here and content myself with stating the facts, and let the implications be what they are. To abolish the age barrier would cost about £21 million. It would mean less than 1s. on the stamp of every married man or less than 2d. on all stamps spread over the whole insurance field.
On 30th June I asked the Minister of State a Question—would widows who are pensionless and who are paying National Insurance contributions have to pay the increased contributions which will be imposed later this year? The answer


was that women who have to pay contributions must pay that increase later this year. Does the Minister realise that £5 million a year will be taken from these pensionless widows? They get nothing from the State and the State is making a profit on them. It is no laughing matter. I do not know what the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. McCann) is laughing at.

Mr. John McCann: I was not laughing.

Mr. Jennings: I gather that the hon. Member for Rochdale made a comment about "thirteen wasted years". He has been here long enough to know that year after year, when the Conservatives were in power, I fought for the 10s. widow. I take none of his accusations personally. I condemned my Government as much as he should be condemning his Government for not dealing with this problem. He should be quiet.
What is the size of the problem? My figures are two years old. I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary has better figures, but these will make the point: to reduce the age barrier from 50 to 45 would cost £12 million. That has nothing to do with future legislation. These are simple financial statistics. To reduce it from 50 to 40 would cost £18 million. To abolish it altogether would cost about £21 million.

Mr. Bruce Campbell: Should not my hon. Friend add that many such widows now receiving no pension have to claim supplementary benefit, which they would no longer need if they had a pension, so that his figure might be substantially reduced?

Mr. Jennings: That point is very well made, and I am grateful.
That is the financial side of the problem. Let us now look at the human side. Widows with no pension at all total 40.000. Those on the 30s. pension total 75,000, making 115.000 in all. Without even dreaming of legislation, the Minister should re-examine the whole question of the age barrier.
The next broad aspect of the problem I would like to look at is the retraining and re-establishment of widows. My hon. and learned Friend showed conclusively how difficult it is for a widow—certainly one over 40—to get a job. These

days, it is difficult enough for a man over 40 to get into the labour market if he has been made redundant. How much more difficult it is for a woman over 40, after having raised a family and run a home, and lost her skills in industry, commerce or wherever she was employed. Is it to be understood that widows are held in less repute than other redundant workers, the disabled or even criminals, for whom the authorities provide all sorts of re-training and re-establishment schemes?
Therefore, I ask the Minister to look again at the whole question of these forgotten women. I hope that I shall not be fobbed off with the White Paper, to be effective, if ever, some years ahead. These women want help now.

12.14 a.m.

Mr. Donald Williams: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Bruce Campbell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings) have stated the sad plight of the pensionless widow and advocated her cause most ably.
I support them, because over many months innumerable widows have written to me and been to see me about their problems as a result of being pensionless. As a result, on 12th May I asked a Question, and at the end of my supplementary question I asked the Minister:
Could he not give such people hope that in the near future they will be helped over their problem in regard to pensions?
The reply was:
This is precisely what the White Paper does. It gives not only hope but confidence to the widow that she will benefit in widowhood as well as in retirement from contributions paid by her husband."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th May, 1969; Vol. 783, c. 961.]
That is hope for something which may happen in 1972 or thereafter, if at all. I trust that the Minister will not hide behind what the Government hope to put into the White Paper—

Mr. Deputy Speaker(Mr. Sydney Irving): Order. The hon. Gentleman is getting very close to the rule about not raising legislation on the Consolidated Fund Bill.

Mr. Williams: I am very sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but this is a very difficult and narrow debate in this context. I know that he wants a wider debate on


this subject. He has said so on more than one occasion. We wants it so that he can get an understanding of what people are thinking and feeling about this.
The House has been told of the numbers of widows. I understand that the Registrar General's estimate is that on 30th June, 1968, there were 6,200 widows under 30; 22.500 from 30 to 39 inclusive; and 113,100 from 40 to 49. I have done my arithmetic, and at a rate of £4 10s. a week the total cost would be £33,181,200. But that is not the real cost to the State, because a substantial number of these widows get social service benefits now and quite a large number get the 30s. a week.
The strange part is that in answer to another Question by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oldham, West, who wanted to know about the supplementary benefits in 1967 to wives separated from their husbands, the reply was:
I regret that this information is not available. But a sample inquiry in November, 1967, suggested that expenditure on supplementary benefit for separated wives staying at home to care for children was at the annual rate of something like £30 million."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th July. 1969; Vol. 786, c. 169.]
So we are more concerned with looking after the duties of husbands who have deserted their wives than with widows unfortunate enough to get no pension from the State. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will look into this.
My hon. Friends have been raising the question of widows in the future. In a reply by the Under Secretary I was told:
It is estimated that the number of such widows under age 60 will be about 2,000."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th July, 1969; Vol. 786, c. 66.]
That refers to those who will have died between 1st June, 1969 and 31st March, 1972. All hope of them ever getting anything from their husbands' contributions and all confidence for them will be destroyed fairly quickly.
I should like to quote from a letter from one of my constituents:
I was widowed five years ago and have a daughter of 18. I am at present in receipt of a widowed mother's allowance of £6 15s. 6d., but this will cease entirely at the end of next month when my daughter reaches the age of 19 years. By any standard this will be quite an appreciable drop in income especially when considered in relation to the ever-rising cost of living. In addition to losing this

allowance. I am advised that it will be in my own interests to pay a full National Insurance contribution as against the 7d. rate I pay at present, and I no longer qualify for Income Tax Relief in respect of my daughter as her 19th birthday comes in the current tax year. I estimate that my income from the beginning of June will be reduced by over £9 per week.
In spite of this, I still feel that I am one of the fortunate ones, as, following my husband's death, I was able to resume, after a break of 15 years, the type of work I had done prior to my marriage which is reasonably well paid. Many widows are, however, unable to do this and have to take unskilled work at quite a low wage, which means that the loss of their State pension is nothing, short of disastrous.
This is the point my hon. Friends have been trying to emphasise. It does not help, when a reply by the Under Secretary to a Question I raised with the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity. I am told:
Pensionless widows and widows receiving 30s per week have the same right to be considered for training under the Government vocational training scheme as other women or men. Where retraining is needed in their cases, however, it is usually carried out by industry itself, with the assistance where appropriate of grants from the Industrial Training Boards."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th July, 1969; Vol. 786, c. 194.]
This is a platitudinous argument because, assuming that these widows are already over the age of 40, it is well known that they will wish to retire at the age of 60 under the present provisions. There are not many people in industry or commerce who will spend considerable sums of money on training people for such a short period of industrial or commercial life.
I have had many letters and there is one which I consider to be so damaging to any case that the Government may have that I feel that I must read it. It is dated 1st July, 1969, and reads:
My husband passed away six weeks ago, after being in full employment until the age of 65, then continued part time until his death. Due to this part time employment he was unable to obtain old age pension and as I am under 50 years of age I shall receive only 26 weeks pension, after which I shall be unable to obtain any further benefits whatsoever. I have also been informed that I have to contribute out of my own pocket for the next 11 years to enable me to receive a pension at 60 years of age.
My late husband was a serving member of H.M. Forces at the age of 15½ and took part in the battle of the Dardenelles at 16. This, of course, upsets me greatly to think that my husband served his country not only during his period in H.M. Forces, but for a further 50 years without receiving any benefit whatsoever from the State.


We have tried to give the hon. Gentleman a fair and reasonable understanding of the position of the pensionless widow. I hope that he will not fob us off with mere hope for the future and will give these widows genuine hope that action will be promoted in the very near future.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is out of order now.

Mr. Williams: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am coming to the end of what I have to say.
The Department of Health and Social Security has issued a booklet, "The Right to Help". I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take this to heart and decide to help these pensionless widows.

12.23 a.m.

Mr. Paul Dean: I intervene briefly to support the points made by my hon. Friends and to congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Bruce Campbell) on his luck in the Ballot and his skill in remaining within the rules of order.
I am sure that it is clear to the Under-Secretary of State that all my hon. Friends are dissatisfied with the proposals which the Government have made with regard to some years ahead to deal with this problem. They have spoken movingly and with obvious close knowledge of the problem of the rigid age barrier which exists and which inevitably appears unjust to the widows who are just on the wrong side of the barrier. They have quoted letters. I have one here which I will not quote. They all show that there is here a strong feeling of injustice.
The hon. Gentleman may well say that this decision was made in the years after the war, when it was decided that, rather than give a pension for widowhood as such, it would, following the Beveridge scheme, be better to concentrate the benefits on those widows who were over a certain age or who still had dependent children. Whether that decision was right or wrong at the time, I think he will recognise that conditions have substantially changed since.
Women tend to marry younger and their families tend to grow up earlier and, therefore, more of them are faced with

the position where they are not entitled to anything more than the short-term resettlement allowance, which is what it is, for the 13-week period. Many more of them are caught by this rigid age barrier owing to having had their families earlier than was the tendency when the present arrangements were introduced in the early years after the war.
For this reason, my party committed itself at the last election to removing the rigid age barrier of 50. We welcome the fact that the Government have taken up this proposal in their White Paper, but we have strong feelings about the Government's sense of priorities on this issue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings) pointed out that widows who are not entitled to a pension are to have to pay the increased contributions which will come into operation in November. They are, naturally, asking themselves about the Government's sense of priorities when they see that an additional £430 million is to be raised for increases in benefits and to get the scheme out of the red while they will receive nothing.
Inevitably the suspicion grows that the Government announce policies to be put into operation some years ahead and are prepared to write cheques now to be honoured by another Government after the election. It will not be convincing for the Under-Secretary to say that the Government intend to do something some years hence. I know that he will rely on that argument, but it will not carry conviction of a correct sense of priorities.
I appreciate the problems of keeping in order, but I hope that at least he will be able to say something to give my hon. Friends some reassurance that the Government intend to take action in some respects to relieve the plight of these widows rather than rely as the hon. Member appears to be doing, on some promise to come into operation only after the next General Election.

12.28 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Norman Pentland): I am sure that everyone will sympathise with the feelings which have prompted the debate, for all hon. Members will have come up against the problem of the sharp cut-off


at 50 years of age in the National Insurance Scheme provisions for widows' pensions.
I know that the hon. and learned Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Bruce Campbell) was not successful in getting a Second Reading for a Private Member's Bill on this subject earlier this year. I am as glad as he that, through the medium of the Ballot, he has at least been able to express his views on this difficult problem, as have his hon. Friends the Members for Burton (Mr. Jennings), Dudley (Mr. Donald Williams) and Somerset, North (Mr. Dean).
Matters relating to employment and vocational training are outside the scope of my Department, but no doubt my right hon. Friend the First Secretary will have her attention drawn to what has been said this evening.
As the House knows, the Government's ideas on the social security provision appropriate to widows were published in the White Paper on National Superannuation and Social Insurance in January this year. The new scheme provides that a childless widow between 40 and 50, or a widowed mother whose allowance ends between 40 and 50, will receive a scaled-down pension. A scaled-down flat-rate pension will also be provided for existing widows if they satisfied the new qualifying condition at the time that they were widowed or when widowed mother's allowance ceased.
In contrast with the proposals in the hon. and learned Member's Bill, the Government's proposals are part of a carefully integrated scheme and are necessarily linked to the earnings-related contributions and pensions proposals. We intend this scaled-down widow's pension to provide a benefit in circumstances in which the woman is fully able to work, but her earning capacity has been impaired by absence from the labour market through marriage.
I would emphasise that the Government's proposals have been worked out bearing in mind the consequences such an extension of widow's benefit might have—for instance, the problems of the relationship with title to sickness and unemployment benefit, with retirement pension when the widow reaches 60, and so on. For this reason alone, it

would be premature to take this group in isolation when there are related areas of the new scheme proposals still under public discussion. The Government have produced proposals and have shown the country that they are prepared to meet the problem and that the necessary resources can be made available through the earnings related scheme.
The cost of the scaled-down widow's pensions proposals would be about £12 million in terms of the present standard rate of £4 10s. and slightly more when the new £5 rate operates this autumn. The Bill of the hon. and learned Member for Oldham, West, proposed a sliding scale starting at 35 with quinquennial increases until full pension was reached at age 50, and would cost about £17 million a year, rising eventually to £22·5 million. These are substantial sums.
I would draw the hon. and learned Gentleman's attention to the debate on the Divorce Reform Bill in Standing Committee on 29th January, in which he took part. He remarked on additional expenditure of £400,000 on additional cases if the Bill became law. He said that this:
Was a large sum at a time when we are being told that public expenditure must be curtailed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 29th January, 1969, c. 11.]
The hon. and learned Member also put down a Motion to reject the Bill on those grounds, which said:
On Third Reading of the Divorce Reform Bill, to move, That this House declines to give a Third Reading to a Bill which at a time of severe economic stringency is likely to throw additional burdens on the taxpayer in the shape of further demands on the Legal Aid Fund and a large increase in claims for social security benefits.
That was the hon. and learned Gentleman's view of an additional expenditure of £400,000.

Mr. Bruce Campbell: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding me of what I said in a different context, but should he not compare like with like? I was criticising the expenditure of £300,000 or £400,000 a year out of the Legal Aid Fund to enable guilty people to divorce their innocent wives. Is not that rather different from granting pensions to widows?

Mr. Pentland: I entirely disagree. The hon. and learned Gentleman mentions additional expenditure of £400,000, but his Motion ended with these words:
… is likely to throw additional burdens on the taxpayer in the shape of further demands on the Legal Aid Fund and a large increase in claims for social security benefits.
The hon. and learned Gentleman cannot have one standard here and another for unfortunate people who are involved as a consequence of divorce.

Mr. Jennings: Later this year the Government will drastically increase the National Insurance contribution. Does he not agree that, if the spreadover is correct, as I have said, to abolish the age barrier at a cost of rouhgly £21 million would mean 2d. on every National Insurance stamp? Would that be a great burden in view of the vast increase proportionally which is to be made? Would it not be worth while to deal with these forgotten women in this way?

Mr. Pentland: I cannot qualify or dispute the hon. Gentleman's figures at this time. Is it the Opposition's policy, if, unfortunately, they are returned to power, to have no age limit for widows? If so, where will they find the additional money for this? The hon. and learned Gentleman's Bill referred to the age of 35 and scaled the amount down at 35 moving on to 50. The hon. Member for Burton, on behalf of the Tory Party,—

Mr. Jennings: Not on behalf of the Tory Party.

Mr. Pentland: —says that there should be no age limit. Is that Tory Policy on the pensionless widow?

Mr. Dean: We have said that we believe that the rigid age barrier of 50 should be removed.

Mr. Pentland: We have said that in the White Paper. We accept that the age of 50 is too rigid. Hon. Members are condemning us for saying that in our White Paper, which we brought forward for public discussion.
To meet the cost of providing pensions for these widows, whether at 35 or 40 and whether at the full rate or on a scale as the hon. and learned Gentleman suggests, it would be necessary to increase contributions. Under the present scheme, contributions may in many cases bear

very harshly on the family man with a low income who can be in a worse position than a widow without a child and who is capable of work. There are special provisions in the present scheme covering widows who are incapable of work or who have difficulty in finding work. If they do not qualify for a widow's pension when the widow's allowance or widowed mother's allowance ceases, the present provisions give title to sickness or unemployment benefit irrespective of the woman's own insurance record at the time and this would be at the same standard rate as a widow's pension. That already applies to the widows about whom hon. Gentlemen are concerned.
The Government's new scheme proposals are integrated. They include a new contributory structure to meet the new pattern of benefits. To introduce an isolated item in advance, it would be necessary to accept that the claims of this section of the community are such that the necessary increase in the present contributions would be justified and that there was a prior need as against claims by others, such as the disabled and the long-term sick, for improved social security benefits.
There is another section of the community about whom we must be concerned. A married woman might go to work because her husband has a serious or long illness or is long-term unemployed. The hon. Member for Burton will be aware of cases like this. A woman in that position also has a difficult problem. All these problems have to be considered.
The Government have said that we are very much aware of the problems of the pensionless widows and have produced proposals for meeting the difficulty. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said time and time again that he would welcome discussions of the proposals contained in the White Paper. The evidence which is put forward as a result of that discussion and all the ideas that come forward, including the views expressed here tonight by hon. Members, will need to be considered. I have an assurance from my right hon. Friend that everything that is said and every proposal that comes forward in the larger public discussion which is taking place


will be fully examined. I give that assurance.
The outcome of all this will be for the Government to put forward legislation. As the White Paper said, we intend to introduce legislation—it could not be done sooner—in the next Session of Parliament and to start the scheme as soon as possible afterwards with a target date of April, 1972.

Orders of the Day — OBSCENITY AND THE PERMISSIVE SOCIETY

12.42 a.m.

Mr. John Cordle: At this late hour, I do not intend to delay the House long concerning the subject matter which I wish to discuss. I notice on the board outside in the Lobby that there are still 27 hon. Members who wish to bring their matters of importance to the attention of the House and I shall, therefore, take the minimum time.
I believe that the matter which I wish to discuss—the question of obscenity and the permissive society—is of prime importance. I believe that it is causing a great deal of anxiety to a vast majority of decent people. At this stage, I would like wholeheartedly to associate myself with those who drafted Motion No. 407 on the subject of public decency and the Arts Council:
[That this House rejects the recommendations of Lord Goodman's working party of the Arts Council that the statutes of 1959 and 1964 (Obscene Publications) and 1968 (Theatres) should be repealed; and calls for reasonable safeguard of public decency inherent in these statutes to be retained.]
As The Times rightly argued the other day, over the last few years politics has been dominated by economic questions, such as the standard of living and the balance of payments. Increasingly, however, people are becoming mare concerned with the quality of life rather than with the money which they have in their pockets. If one is to believe the reports of Labour Party meetings, apparently even that party have become more aware recently of quality rather than quantity. This all means that political argument is becoming oriented towards a discussion

of ends rather than means, of values rather than valuables.
Even the Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to have taken this fact aboard. Many of us will have read with interest his speech last week-end, in which he defended the so-called permissive society and put forward the view that permissiveness as we know it today could be co-related with civilisation. If he really believes this to be true, then ought not he to accept administrative responsibility for Customs and Excise? The Chancellor's speech, and the extraordinary recent report of the Arts Council, advocating the abolition of censorship of books, are two of the main reasons for my wishing to discuss tonight the question of contemporary morality.
What is being advocated today is more than the abolition of censorship. It is the abolition of standards of decency. It is not realism that would be encouraged, but the public disposal of what seems to be sewage. Still we keep lids on our dustbins; still we have doors to our lavatories. Surely there are limits to what we are prepared to tolerate in public; and this not only for the sake of the children, but because we will not allow the complete debasement of life in the name of liberty or art.
Has not the Home Secretary complete responsibility for children under the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act, 1955? The possibility of successful prosecution for obscenity is a deterrent for some, although the risqué has undoubted appeal, and there may well be publishers who will risk penalties in the hope of getting away with nasty stuff in a big and profitable way. Is not this the responsibility of the Attorney-General?
Last week, in The Times, Sir Robert Lusty, of Hutchinson's, the publishers, said:
We have to consider, also, the fact that English is the language first or second of countless millions. The perversion of the English language is an issue of world importance. It is not a cosy problem for this country alone.
Whatever may be said of our position as a major political Power, there is no doubt that we have literary and moral prestige, both among the emergent nations and wherever men seek culture and higher education, and we cannot afford to slide further into cesspit morals


and cesspit language. I believe that the British Council will find its task almost impossible if the only English culture to offer is obscene.
It is always assumed that if one questions today's moral standards—or at least, those standards which are acceptable in progressive circumstances—one is being guilty of appalling reaction, and is dubbed a "square" or a Puritan beside whom Queen Victoria would seem positively libertine. If that really is the case then all I can say is that the reactionaries, in my experience, are in the majority and make up, for example, the vast number of parents in this country.
The other assumption which is made about those of us who question today's standards is that we are somewhat against freedom and even more against fun. Nothing is further from the truth. As a Conservative, I naturally believe in the freedom of the individual, but one cannot point out often enough that there is a difference between freedom and excess, between liberty and licence. It was argued, to my mind incontrovertibly, more than 200 years ago, that "Freedom must be limited if it is to be possessed."
What of the argument that we are against fun? I pointed out in this House to the then Home Secretary, almost 10 years ago, that we were suffering from a gust of lust. Since then the gusts have reached the proportions of a tornado. Are the results of the excess increased happiness and enjoyment? I personally think not.
Can anyone argue that the moral climate today, popularised in the newspapers or advertisements and on the television, has nothing to do with the appalling social problems which we frequently hear about—the growing number of abortions among young women, the increased incidence of veneral disease, drug addiction, and the number of unmarried mothers deserted by the fathers of their children after one shallow and intemperate affair. Is this the best happiness we in this House can offer to our young people? Ought not the Postmaster-General to intervene to clean up some of the questionable television plays which are so often shown at present?
What is the solution to the moral problems of today. I do not believe that it can be found in knocking down what

remains of our traditional moral code and structure of social responsibility. What we need is a restatement in modern terms of the values which have given purpose to our life in the future. They are the values in every happy family and home and which can be endorsed by the Home Secretary, if he so wishes.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) writing in the Sunday Express on 13th July, under the heading, "Is this what you want for your children?", said:
Let us call a halt for the time being to amateur legislation of all kinds until we have a little more opportunity to assess its effects. There is no system of law that I have ever heard of which is not in need of improvement. But laws to be effective must have some regard to the known weaknesses of human nature and the tendency of rules to be abused and stretched not least by the very people for whose protection they are devised.
The Home Secretary has a general responsibility for law and order in the widest sense and should see that the present trend of obscenity and the permissive society which is leading to the; breakdown of law and order must stop.

12.53 a.m.

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: I am very glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle) has raised this subject, although it is one on which it is difficult to talk seriously in the short time at our disposal at this late hour. It is a philosophical discussion as much as anything else, embracing the whole moral character of our society and the way that we as legislators should be trying to lead it.
I have been increasingly worried over the past few months about where we are going and what we here in Parliament are doing. The latest example is the recommendation by Lord Goodman, on behalf of the Arts Council, on the obscenity laws. It highlights the whole affair.
There is no doubt that in our present society we are becoming more permissive. With this permissiveness should go, but it does not, an increasing awareness of the need for self-discipline. In regard to the obscenity laws, it is ridiculous to try to legislate, or to keep the existing legislation, in order to try to guide the morale of people and the words which


they see in print and should not see in print. But I cannot see how we can get round this problem unless publishers will accept self-discipline.
One of the dangers that we face is that as a society we are not applying any self-discipline to ourselves. Since 1964, by legislation in this House, we have gone a long way towards encouraging the increased permissiveness of our society and within it. I do not need to enumerate all the various Private Members' Bills which have gone through or are going through Parliament on these lines: the Sexual Offences Bill, the Abortion Bill and the Divorce Bill, and so on. These have been factors in liberalising our society. But with this process of liberalisation there has not gone an increasing awareness by the ordinary citizen or by those of us in the House of the need for self-restraint and the need for self-discipline. By this denial, we need the Government to hold to well-tried standards.
Society is becoming decadent in many respects and I am worried sick over this. I have four children in their late teens and in our present social climate they are going through all the stresses and strains which I had to overcome, but times were different and easier then. Millions of teenagers are in the same plight, and I am deeply worried for them.
What can we, as parliamentarians, do to help? What course can we propose to the Government, not only on the obscenity laws but in other matters? We must do something because our age group, the 40s to 50s., have a duty to set an example and prepare the framework within which society must live. We can influence not only this generation, but future generations. While we cannot go back to a restrictive, Victorian type of society, laying down rules covering every aspect of behaviour, we must do something positive.
Our young people are no worse and no better than the youngsters of previous generations, but they have more money to spend and they receive much more attention from the newspapers and television. These media of communication highlight the activities of those few who misbehave. For example, last week, in Australia a rather stupid young lady named Marianne Faithfull unhappily did herself a damage by taking an overdose

of drugs. The amount of coverage this incident received in the Press and on television was out of all proportion to her importance. I do not know—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): Order. The hon. Gentleman must relate his remarks to some Ministerial responsibility. I am not sure that what he is now saying is relevant to the Minister in question.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: In our increasingly permissive society no good is served by highlighting these bad activities and ignoring much of the good. We have a responsibility to say what is good, and while we may be called "squares," that should not stop our making an effort to improve matters. We must create a society in which this and future generations can live happily. Whether or not Lord Goodman was right in all respects, the Government must think more deeply on this issue. They must say, "This is far enough" and act responsibly for the sake of our children. I fear that they are not doing that in other moral issues.
I return to what I said at the outset. I hope that we can form a society of which we and future generations can be proud and which, for our children, represents a fine inheritance.

1.00 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Merlyn Rees): As the parent of a young family, like the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins), I would be the last to deny that there are problems in our society. It would do all hon. Members good to have a look at books such as Booth's "Life and Labour in London in the 19th Century" or Mayhew's book of a similar title dealing with a slightly earlier period, or another book that I have been reading, called the "Bitter Cry of Outcast London". This applies to the hon. Lady the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight), the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle), and my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling), who, although he sits for a Southern constituency talks a great deal about his youth in Liverpool.
When we look at this we find that the quality of human existence 50 or more years ago was a good deal worse than


it is now. I suspect that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West, has the key to this—it is the unusual occurrences that are spotlighted through the organs of communication. In meeting young people in all walks of life I find that their view of the unusual cases is not all that different from ours.
We saw a large number of young people walking to Wembley last week. If they had done a bit of militia military service they would not have worn the shoes they did—that is something they would have learned the hard way at an earlier age—but their hearts were in the right place. There were far more of them doing that than the sort of things about which we read in certain organs of the Press.
I do not want to put this out of perspective, but I feel like a former Member of the House who was before a Tory selection committee last weekend and was asked for his views on sex and crime, etc. He said that he was "agin them". This is true of everyone in all political parties. Whatever we can do politically, I am not sure that Governments of any political persuasion can give a lead here. It lies much deeper than that, in parenthood, in the chapels and the churches and the political parties.
I am not convinced, despite the evidence brought to my notice in last Friday's debate—and it rather sets one back to see what is being put out, particularly for young people—that the situation is as bad as we sometimes think.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the point about Government responsibility, would he not accept that when a Government makes it easier for a man to sit on his backside rather than work this is not the right kind of climate?

Mr. Rees: I cannot see that point. I accept that there are the feckless, as there have always been. If we are to talk about a society in which people are sitting on their backsides doing nothing, there were far more people doing that in the 1930s than now. This is another example of exaggeration. It is the mythology of politics. I get it with race relations, when it is said that a number of people are drawing social security, but when there

are investigations it is found to be a little bit of mythology. There are examples of this, but they are taken completely out of the wider perspective.
The Home Secretary is responsible for the form of the law. To that degree I accept that Governments have a responsibility. They are responsible for the law relating to obscene publications. But the Home Secretary has no responsibility for its enforcement. This is entirely a matter for the police advised, as necessary by the Director of Public Prosecutions. It is open to anyone who thinks that a particular book, magazine, or any other article is obscene to give full particulars to the police, who will decide whether proceedings should be instituted.
In most cases, the police will consult the Director of Public Prosecutions, who will be able to advise whether action under the Obscene Publications Acts would be appropriate. In giving this advice, the Director of Public Prosecutions takes into account his knowledge of the general attitude of the courts and the consideration that the publicity attending an unsuccessful prosecution may well result in a greater distribution of the kind of material about which complaint is made. That is a factor to be taken into account. Whatever view the Director of Public Prosecutions holds, and with many qualifications which it would not be appropriate to go into now, it is open to any individual to initiate a private prosecution.
Perhaps I might inform the House about the use made of the laws. First, there are the Obscene Publications Acts of 1959 and 1964. I observe that the hon. Gentleman was not making a political point in choosing 1964. But it so happens that there was concern about obscenity in 1959 and in 1964, so it has gone over a longer period. These prohibit the printing, publishing, selling or letting for hire of obscene articles. During 1968, in the Metropolitan Police District alone, over 26,000 articles, including books, photographs and films, were seized under those Acts, mainly from bookshops. In most cases the articles were destroyed after a disclaimer had been signed by the proprietor of the shop giving up all right of possession, but proceedings were brought in 38 cases, usually where there was evidence of continuous trading. The number of people prosecuted under these


Acts throughout England and Wales in the same year was 130; in 1967 it was 118; and in 1966 it was 132.
Section 42 of the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876—it seems that there was a problem in this respect in 1876 as well—prohibits the importation of indecent or obscene prints, paintings, photographs, books, cards, lithographic or other engravings, or any other indecent or obscene articles. If Customs officials are satisfied that any material sent into this country contravenes the 1876 Act, they have power to seize it under the Customs and Excise Act, 1952, and, unless the person to whom the material was addressed wishes to contest the seizure in a magistrates' court they may then destroy it. This Act is used mainly to prevent the large-scale importation, particularly from America, of indecent or obscene books and magazines.
The use which is made of it can be demonstrated by figures which I have given before, but perhaps I can paraphrase them. In 1966–67, there were 165 trade seizures, involving approximately 1¼ million magazines and approximately 205,000 books. In 1967–68, there were 245 such seizures, involving about 612,000 magazines and about 324,000 books. In 1968–69, there were 164 seizures, involving about 792,000 magazines and about 703,000 books.
Section 11(1)(b) of the Post Office Act, 1953, prohibits the sending of postal packets which contain indecent or obscene articles. About 6,000 postal packets, mainly from abroad, were found to be in contravention of it. Most of the material was detained or destroyed, but successful proceedings were taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions in 21 cases involving 4,630 photographs, 1,272 negatives, 31 cine films and 58 written publications of various kinds.
There is also Section 4 of the Vagrancy Act, 1824, and Section 2 of the Vagrancy Act, 1838, which prohibit the public display of any obscene print, picture or other indecent exhibition, and proceedings were taken against 35 people in 1968. In so far as the Home Office has responsibility for the form of the law, and the Director of Public Prosecutions enforces the law, I have given evidence that there is concern about this, and there is a large amount of confiscation.
There is concern about young people. For the purposes of the Obscene Publications Acts of 1969 and 1964, an article is deemed to be obscene if its effect, taken as a whole, is such as
to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all the relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it".
This definition requires the courts to take into consideration all the circumstances surrounding the distribution or circulation of any particular material. This means that the fact that the material in question had been deliberately sent to young people, or had been shown in a place to which they might reasonably be assumed to have access, would be relevant, and is an additional safeguard for young people.
Then there is the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act, 1955. As I explained last time, this has dealt with the problem of the importation of horror comics, and things of that kind. Since the passing of that Act, there has been little attempt to import horror comics, and there has been no prosecution for publishing them here. Inquiries have shown that there is still a flourishing market in the United States for the sale of horror comics, so that the explicit prohibition contained in the 1955 Act cannot be dispensed with.
I have deliberately not gone into the problem of what is obscenity. I see a great deal of it. A lot of stuff is brought to my notice. I confess that to my untutored, layman's mind it seems to be obscene, but, looked at in the context of the definition of obscenity over the years—and it is not a decision of Ministers, but of the Director of Public Prosecutions—it is not considered in that way. The present law has been in existence for only about 10 years, and the current debate is in its early stages.
I make no comment about a report issued by the Arts Council. It has not been brought to the notice of my right hon. Friend, and I have not had the opportunity of reading it. I take note of the Motion on the Order Paper, but it is not the responsibility of my right hon. Friend. In any case, I think that I should be trespassing in the context of future legislation if I were to do that. It has been ruled that consideration of a change in law is out of order, and I was careful


not to trespass on that as I had not had the benefit of seeing a copy of the report.

Mr. William Hamling: I have.

Mr. Rees: I know that my hon. Friend will let me have a copy of it.
Looking at the problem as a whole, it is interesting to note that the description of obscenity has recently broadened. As I argued last time, what is obscenity seems to change with the passage of time. There is a social attitude towards it. It now seems to deal not only with the extent to which sexual matters might be more freely discussed, but also with the extent to which the description of other matters such as violence and drug taking are to be controlled in the same way. This illustrates the changing attitude over the years to what is obscenity, and, also, the desirability for it to be set out in terms which are broad enough to reflect changing social considerations.
Perhaps it could be said that this broadening of the discussion—not the fact of obscenity—is a sign of social maturity, and that people are prepared to discuss it with a far more open mind than they might have done at one time, but the hon. Gentleman chose to put it in the context of obscenity and the permissive society.
I accept that obscenity is related to different forms of society, but I think I have made the point that it seems to have been a problem in all forms of society over the years. If one visits the ruins of mediaeval and ancient Italy one sees that it is not unlikely that obscenity was a question which exercised people's minds in those days, long before the words "permissive society" were used.
In a different context—in relation to drugs—my right hon. Friend expressed the view that permissiveness is one of the most unlikeable words invented in recent years, and I agree. He suggested that it might be better if we could regard ourselves as a responsible society. My view is that this is nearer the mark. We all of us exaggerate because we see the unusual rather than the typical. That is not to say that there are not problems. There are, but they arise largely out of affluence.
It is odd that when we are talking about the state of the country we come back

to the fact that our young people are better off materially than ever before. This gives rise to problems, but I am not sure that it is permissiveness. It has something to do with economic independence and debates we have had about votes at 18 as opposed to 21. To a large degree it is a question of communication and the way in which certain organs of the Press deal with these questions.
It has been valuable to have another look at this question of obscenity. The Government and my right hon. Friend have a responsibility for the form of this legislation. I can assure the hon. Member that our responsibilities will be exercised.

Orders of the Day — SMALL BUSINESSES

1.17 a.m.

Mrs. Jill Knight: I am glad to have the opportunity to raise this important subject, representing as I do part of a great city which has a proud name as "the city with a thousand trades". Many of those trades are carried on in a very small way. I shall talk of the problems which they face against a background of bankruptcies and even suicides of small businessmen. Last month a constituent of mine who ran a small business became so weighed down with the rising number of worries he faced in keeping his business going against what appeared to him insurmountable odds, that he committed suicide.
This may have been an extreme case. Nevertheless, thousands of small businesses today are in danger of going to the wall. They are by no means necessarily inefficient. They provide important services for the country, but they have to face constant savage attacks of various forms from the Government who appear to think that they constitute some sinister danger to the State and must be eliminated by squeeze or freeze by fair means or foul.
The phrase "small business" is difficult to define, even if we take it to mean a business which employs a very small number of people, perhaps under 100. Three-fifths of manufacturing units in Britain today employ fewer than 100 persons. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Weatherill),


who greatly regrets that he is unable to be present tonight, has made a wide and careful study of this subject over many years. I shall quote him on more than one occasion. He has pointed out that in Britain there are about 80,000 small companies. If they all closed tomorrow, 2½ million people would be out of work and over £6,000 million of industrial output would vanish with their jobs. That is not peanuts. The Government cannot shrug it off as unimportant. I cannot believe that they do not know it.
The first problem is that of creditworthiness. For a number of reasons, many small businesses are forced to operate on credit—and that has always been the case. A constituent of mine was in trouble in meeting the Industrial Training Board levy. He had a very small printing business and drew a derisory salary for himself. He could not raise the money from the bank to pay the levy because of Government policy. He was at his wits' end, and someone contacted me on his behalf. I regret to say that after correspondence with the Minister the only relief I was offered was that it might be possible for this poor man to pay by instalments. In fact, his story had a happy ending, because the Engineering Industry Training Board agreed to waive most of the levy, as they recognised the immense difficulties under which he was operating.
But it is hard when one Government Department demands money. A small business cannot produce it out of a hat, or even out of a safe. Whereas, formerly, the bank would have advanced the money, another Government Department now refuses to permit that. The Government appear to believe that loans are excellent when made to Britain, but reprehensible and unworthy when made to individual Britons.
It should be clearly understood that because small companies have no shareholders they are limited strictly to their own resources. It is very difficult for them to grant debentures. Where small businesses are partnerships they face not only income tax, but also surtax. A limited company pays corporation tax at 42½ per cent., shortly to be 45 per cent., and that is a smaller burden than income tax and surtax.
I turn to selective employment tax, the most hated tax ever to be levied on the long-suffering people. Many small businesses get it back, but not before they have given an interest-free loan to the Government for six months. It is rather less than fair when the Government will not allow small businesses to borrow the money from the banks, even at high interest rates. Other small businesses do not get their S.E.T. payments back. If the Chancellor is not sharply aware that for many retail businesses the latest savage increase in this imposition means bankruptcy, he cannot have been receiving the letters which I have sent him recently from constituents amply making the point.
To some small basinesses—export houses and building—the extortions of S.E.T. make no sense at all.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harry Gourlay): Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Lady, but Mr. Speaker has ruled that questions of taxation are not in order on Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill.

Mrs. Knight: With respect, it is one of the great problems which face small businesses—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That may be so, but it is not covered under the appropriation of the Consolidated Fund and is not in order. Mr. Speaker has ruled several times today that taxation may not be discussed on Second Reading of the Bill.

Mrs. Knight: I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and leave the point as I have made it, but I regret that I am not able to deal with it at greater length. It is one of the problems which small businesses face.
Estate duty wipes out many small businesses. Hundreds of them go out of existence because when the boss dies it is necessary to sell the business to meet estate duty demands. This might not mean that it goes out of existence, because it might just change hands. But it is unfair to the widow and family, and for the man's partner it is absolutely ruinous. On many occasions the partner cannot carry on.
There are all sort of added burdens, such as the amount of paper work small businessmen must do for the Government, not only for such things as P.A.Y.E.


but in the constant returns they must make to various Government Departments mesmerised by them. For example, there are redundancy payments, and the fact that funds set up to cover them are not tax-free, as they should be. The redundancy payments that have to be made by small firms constitute a real problem for many of them.
There are some very sore points in connection with the close company provisions of the 1965 Finance Act. When close companies, denied borrowing facilities elsewhere, borrow from a director, participator in the company, or member of the family connected with the company at a commercial rate of interest, this is not allowed for tax purposes. It is laughingly called a distribution.
The import surcharge is another headache for many small firms. If they cannot obtain cover from their suppliers overseas they must finance yet another interest-free loan to the Government.
The Companies Act is another burden. It is a serious matter that the small companies must disclose publicly what hitherto have been most confidential matters of salary figures, turnover, export figures and profits. This puts many small firms at a great disadvantage. All this information is useful to competitors, and they do not fail to take advantage of the knowledge. This is iniquitous. There are countless examples of a multiplicity of legislative straws that are breaking the small company camel's back.
Only today my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Longden) asked whether the President of the Board of Trade would
…seek to amend section 1 of the Industrial Development Act, 1966, so as to enable him to make investment grants to firms who incur capital expenditure in providing new plant or machinery for use in a qualifying industrial process when that process is carried out on the firms' behalf by sub-contractors.
I have not seen the Answer yet, but I will bet that it is, "No" It is one more example of the kind of thing small businesses suffer badly from. There is, for instance, the problem of restaurants and hotels which cannot equip themselves under the arrangements that used to be made when their table cloths or sheets are worn out or they have to replace cutlery and china and so on. These, too, are burdens.
I am not saying that all the businesses which are going to the wall and facing bankruptcy are doing solely as a result of Government action. There are some inefficient small businesses, and it is understandable that in the rat race these go under. But, in the main, the small businesses do an excellent job for Britain and deserve encouragement. We know about the Government's passion for mergers, for bigger and bigger companies. They smile on commercial matrimony in a very concrete way. But the bulk of our companies are still small. The large percentage of all the companies in Britain are small businesses, and their importance to the country is immense.
The existence of a large number of small independent businesses helps to increase efficiency, high quality and reasonable prices to the consumer. Small firms also constitute a large and diversified source of employment opportunities and are frequently sources of new products and ideas. Certain things are best done by small firms. Their adaptability, resilience, and ability to respond to change are often not present in the bigger companies which are infinitely more clumsy. The small firms offer provision for growth and give opportunities to a man unable to find his true vocation in a large concern.
I do not believe that any of these reasons why encouragement should be given to small firms are invalid. They all come from my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East, who knows the subject well.
The Government have been ready to recognise the difficulties. I would particularly pay tribute to the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell), now on the Government Front Bench, for his kind help to me when I piloted my Bill on design of copyright which went through this House last year, and which was to help small firms. The Government has schemes to promote management efficiency which are immensely important, and, as far as they go, good.
I should also mention the help of the Rural Industries Board, which is very good indeed.
When looking at the tremendous difficulties under which small businesses are working today, however, these are niggardly crumbs. Sometimes it seems that the Government are aiming at bring-


ing about a situation where there are only big businesses. Perish the thought.
I know that it is not in order, having posed the problem, to say what the answers would be. This comes hard, because some of us are used to the criticism of politicians that we are always talking destructively and never constructively. Unfortunately, the administrative arrangements governing this debate do not allow us to do more than state the problems. There are answers, and the Government know them. The Government should remove many of the difficulties which face small businesses.
If I have managed to get the Government to think about some of these things, although I have no wish to go on with examples, I have achieved something.

1.34 a.m

Mr. Wallace Lawler: I have no wish to repeat some of the words of the hon. Lady the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight), but on this occasion I am making my maiden speech and, as I come from a constituency with more small firms than any other constituency in the country, it might be right and proper to make a maiden contribution.
I am told that a maiden speech should be non-controversial. I hope that the House will afford me some indulgence, but it is difficult to fulfil that requirement and to keep faith with those on the parliamentary register at Ladywood, and the thousands of small firms not entitled to parliamentary franchise, in putting to the House certain points they would clearly expect their elected Member to put.
Small businesses, which abound in Ladywood, and the small income families —the bulk of Ladywood electors are in that category—have a common problem. It is the struggle to survive, the weekly dilemma of how to make both ends meet. I wonder whether the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Dance), who made a recent reference to the small number of electors in Ladywood, realised before he spoke that there are more non-refund S.E.T. sufferers among small businesses in Ladywood than in his constituency and in Meriden, Dudley and Birmingham, Northfield constituencies put together.
Ladywood has frequently been on the lips of many hon. Members during recent

debates and a great deal has been said with which I agree about the comparatively small number of electors. What has not been said, and what needs to be emphasised, and nowhere more appropriately than in this debate, is that Lady-wood has more small businesses within its sprawling confines throughout central Birmingham than some of the giant Midland constituencies put together.
We have 1,000 and more small businesses which have no vote at parliamentary elections. They are entitled to look to their M.P. to represent in this House the very many problems they face. Almost every Ladywocd family works inside a small business and almost every Ladywood family lives in a council-owned dwelling. They are low and modest income families.
It is appropriate to refer to this because of the relationship between the working-class electors and the small businesses surrounding them and upon which —a point worth repetition—they are forced to rely for their employment. To remove the popular misconception in the House in recent debates, it should be said that, of Ladywood's 18,500 electors, about 15,000 live in council-owned dwellings. These are low and modest income families, working inside small businesses and having to pay high rents and high heating costs which, in many cases, absorb the first £7 10s. of their limited net incomes weekly.
It is fair to say that the people of Ladywood, like millions more throughout the country, have to live within these limits of low and modest incomes and that they feel particularly resentful of the higher living costs forced upon them in recent years in such ways, for example, as the ever-increasing rents—in Birmingham there have been five direct and indirect rent increases in three years—and in so many other ways which affect the cost of living generally.
The most interesting feature of the recent by-election, noticeable not only within the ranks of the electors who voted but within the ranks of the about 1,500 small businesses within Ladywood, was the number of those electors and small businessmen who still remember with great bitterness the 16 per cent. increase in electricity charges which the Government allowed to be imposed upon their


very limited turnover in October, 1967. While allowing these excessive increases in the cost of living, the Government had provided no means for the small wage families to increase their incomes. These families, not unnaturally, look to their employers, often small businesses, to help them by substantial wage increases.
Yet the same kind of increases to which the small wage families have been subjected in recent years have been applied, often in even greater measure, to the struggling small businesses which—particularly these which, because of redevelopment, have had to find new sites and new premises—have had to bear increasing costs—heavy electricity and heating charges, general service charges and the other costs which small businesses have to struggle to meet.
I can speak somewhat authoritatively on this subject as one who has headed two small businesses over the past 30 years. I have known and still know the great struggle which a small business has to keep alive. The difficulty has been accentuated by successive actions by the present and preceding Governments. Small businesses have had to struggle against increasing burdens which has fallen on that section of the business world least able to meet it.
For small businesses and for small income families the struggle is not just to progress, but to survive. In Ladywood, I am frequently asked by families who have waited endless years to enter their lovely, but costly, new homes to help them to get back to the lower-rented substandard dwellings, sometimes hovels, in which they formerly lived.
Many small income families are employed by small businesses which find it impossible to pay substantial wage increases and which often face bankruptcy. The trend for small businesses bears a striking similarity to the increasingly unhappy trend of small income families, many of whom are their employees. Existing heavy financial burdens are driving many small businesses to the verge of bankruptcy. Birmingham has a record rate of bankruptcies and many of the firms concerned are small businesses, and the trend is continuing to rise.
I have recently been concerned with the example of one of the most thriving

small businesses which it has been my lot to meet in my constituency. This week, it had to consider cancelling an order for more than 2,000 tons of Corten A steel because of a recent gigantic increase which the Government allowed and which amounted to about 28½ per cent. The loss of the order would mean that an important dollar-earning market would be lost to the country and that the livelihood of a small but important number of people would be endangered because their employment would cease. I hope that the Government will take a fresh and urgent look at the growing problem of small businesses, which would directly help millions of modest, small income families whose livelihoods are closely linked to the prosperity of the average small business.
Small businessmen who are displaced by redevelopment should receive much more financial assistance to meet the full cost of reinstatement and should continue to get additional financial help to meet the heavily increasing overheads during the initial years of reinstatement. This is the beginning of the path to bankruptcy for many small busineses, as is proved by the number of small firms who, after redevelopment in the industrial Midlands, have gone to the wall.
Equally, it should be recognised that the modest income worker within the small business firm forms a large part of the electorate. To continue squeezing him or her by continually squeezing the small business by which he or she is invariably employed is a policy which, if it continues, the present Government may have good cause to regret when the ultimate confrontation with the people takes place. The recent by-election in Ladywood gives emphasis to this grave warning.
I hope that the Government will take heed before it is too late for many small businesses. For many, it is already too late. I hope that, early in the new Session, the Government will allow time for a full debate on the growing problems confronting so many small businesses, and will introduce early measures to assist them.

1.47 a.m

Mr. James Dance: I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Lawler). The House will congratulate him, I think, on his excellent speech. I go a long


way with what he said and I am sure that we will listen to his future speeches with great pleasure.
I am also delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight). I go the whole way with her. When will the Government realise that a large part of the welfare of the country depends on small private enterprise? As my hon. Friend said, Birmingham and the West Midlands have done a tremendous amount to help the economy. She also said that Birmingham is known as the "city of a thousand industries". Although there are many motor car factories in that area, I know of none which actually makes cars. They assemble the cars and most of the components are manufactured by small firms. In my own constituency springs are made to go into a multitude of cars and aircraft. Where would we be without these small industries?
I must declare an interest. I am a director of a small retail wine business. The wine and many other businesses are placed in difficulty. We in the wine business must carry a large stock if we are to compete with supermarkets. We must provide a service which the supermarket cannot provide. A high percentage of the value of my stock is represented by duty, and on my shelves and in my cellar I carry a large amount of money which is just paid over to the Government.
The wine business, like the motor industry, which is partially seasonal, is seasonal. Towards the end of November we must stock up for Christmas. Whereas the wholesaler expects to be paid on the nail at the beginning of the month, our clients cannot be chivvied too much or we would lose them, and in many cases they do not pay until well into March. The Government, by curtailing overdrafts, are making life difficult for that type of business, because in the past we were able to get credit for a short period. It was not a question of our not having sufficient capital to run our business properly. Over an exceptional period, such as over Christmas, we sought and were granted credit from the bank.
People are apt to blame the banks for what goes on, but let us see what the banks say. The Daily Mail of 27th January of this year said:

… Barclays Bank chairman Mr. John Thomson showed his anger at the way his customers are being forced to borrow elsewhere at vastly higher rates.
His speech confirmed the anguish of bank managers who are flush with money but forbidden to lend it by Government directives. As one put it to me: 'I spend all morning telling very good customers that I cannot lend them money and all afternoon begging the nationalised industries, who are outside the directives, to borow the money we have.'
How futile that is.
The Daily Mail of 3rd February of this year, said:
Last week Mr. Crossman produced a pensions plan which would allow the Government to borrow £500 million from us on the promise of bigger pensions in 20 years.
And Mr. Richard Marsh, the Transport Minister, asked us for £25 million to start nationalising the docks.
It is this profligate, uncontrolled, unconsidered borrowing and spending by this Government which is robbing our money of its value, getting us into terrible debt overseas, and depriving industry of finance for expansion. As Mr. Robarts,"—
he is chairman of the London Clearing Banks—
points out, loans from the banks are peanuts in comparison.
If the banks help a fanner to buy a new tractor, or a doctor to re-equip his surgery, or a businessman to lease a computer, they are told they have committed mortal sin.
Yet when we hand over umpteen millions for some pointless piece of nationalisation, the Government tells us that this is a 'dynamic breakthrough,' or some such twaddle.
This is the key point:
The nation's seed corn rots in the granaries of Whitehall, while the fertile fields go to waste.
In the meantime firms are going into liquidation. The Minister of State, in an Answer he gave on 12th February—I draw attention to column 1311 of the OFFICIAL REPORT for that date—stated that there were 729 compulsory liquidations in 1963 and 1,117 in 1968, and that there were 4,455 voluntary liquidations in 1963 and 8,191 in 1968. Are the Government proud of this? Do they want these companies to go into liquidation? I do not know, but it looks sinister to me.
The Government may tell people that they should save and put money aside for a rainy day. I have some interesting figures. When taxation is 8s. 3d. in the £, and inflation is running at a longterm rate of about 4 per cent., as it


has been under the present Government, the real after-tax return from a security earning 8 per cent. is only 0·7 per cent. Let us work that out. From the 8 per cent. return, taxation at 8s. 3d. removes 3·3 per cent. From the remaining 4·7 per cent., 4 per cent. inflation necessitates a 4 per cent. deduction to maintain capital values, leaving only 0·7 per cent. If one is paying surtax, the effect is even greater.
I have raised before the position of small farmers. The Minister of Agriculture has said on many occasions that banks have been told to give special treatment to the farmer. That may be so, but in the West Midlands, close to my part of the country, I know of three farmers who had to go out because they could not carry on and two have emigrated to Australia.
The Government fail to realise that a farmer, having had to buy fertilisers, seeds and, perhaps, machinery, has traditionally gone to his bank to get help to tide him over a difficult period. When the harvest comes in, he pays off the overdraft. I am asking not for permanent overdrafts, but merely that consideration should be given to these people who, through no fault of their own, need to be tided over a difficult period. The "Little Neddy" is asking farmers to increase production by £200 million, but they are given very little return on their capital. Furthermore, they are being penalised by not being able to get the accommodation which they require from the bank.
I turn next to steel stockholders. It is recognised, I think, that the motor industry does not stockpile; it buys its raw material more or less from day to day. As a result, the steel stockholders have to carry fairly large stocks of a large range of steel. As in the wine business, so also in the motor industry there are seasonal increases in production and sales. During those periods, the steel stockholders need extra assistance from the banks, and yet these are the very people who are being clamped down.
When something is manufactured, it must be transported from the place of manufacture to the wholesaler and to the retailer. I now come, therefore, to the question of haulage. The Govern-

ment introduced a Bill not long ago to enforce the testing and plating of commercial vehicles. They were quite right to introduce this measure in the cause of safety, but this has imposed a certain amount of hardship upon the small haulier. He has tried to get a loan from his bank to help him over this difficult period, but he has been turned down.
What is iniquitous is that when National Carriers Limited took over the vehicles of British Railways, it was given a £5 million loan. Why? I am trying to find out the truth of this, but I am quite convinced that British Railways maintained those vehicles so badly that this money was needed to replace those vehicles. They get it, but the small trader does not.
I want to quote a few extracts from letters I have received from various people about this problem. It does not remain only with the wine merchant, with the motor trader, with the road haulier. Here is a man who runs a television business. He applied to the bank for an overdraft to pay for some stock of coloured television that he had been offered. He writes:
The manager agreed that the request was reasonable and he saw no reason why I should not be obliged. Rather shamefacedly, later he came and told me the request that I had made had been flatly refused.
Because of the directive by the Goverment.
I had another letter from a firm of printers, a firm which
produces more than £500.000 worth of printing a year for blue chip British industry. Much of our work is in foreign languages, sales literature, instruction books, etc., for British exports. It may fairly be said that print of this kind is vital to our export trade.
The firm found itself owed about £50,000. It went to the bank which agreed, in the first place, to tide the firm over, but again there was the same old story: a directive from the Government told the firms it could not have the advance. So we go on.
I have another case of a member of Lloyd's who, through age and for other reasons, wanted to retire. I am sure that the Minister will be fully aware that when one retires from Lloyd's it takes three years to get one's deposit back. This man wanted to invest some money in a business. So he went to his bank and said he wanted to borrow


£5,000, which was covered time and again by his deposit at Lloyd's. This request was turned own flat, again because of the directive from the Government.
What are the Government really trying to do? I myself have a feeling that the massacre which is going on of small businesses is a policy of this Socialist Government in order to feed their sacred cow, nationalisation and more nationalisation. They will say that private enterprise does not work and that the Slate should take over. What is even more sinister, they compel small firms to amalgamate and so make it easier for the State to take over. Whether or not I am correct in my assessment of the motives of the Government, and I am fairly sure I am, one thing is certain, that their measures, S.E.T. and bank overdraft restrictions, are driving out of business many small traders who, in the past, have done so much, and in the future should be able to play their part, in helping the economy of our country.

2.3 a.m.

Mr. Michael Shaw: I am grateful for the opportunity to intervene in this debate for a few minutes. First, I should like to add my own congratulations to those already offered by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Dance), to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Lady-wood (Mr. Lawler) on his maiden speech. I am informed by a near neighbour of his that this is probably the first time a Member has made his maiden speech after midnight since J. J. Astor made his maiden speech when he came here to represent Plymouth many years ago. We remember the predecessor of the hon. Member for Ladywood with great affection—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—and regret his death. He made his mark in the House and his memory will be with us for some considerable time. We look forward to the hon. Gentleman's trenchant contributions to our debates.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) for initiating this debate. When one studies the history of many of the great firms in British industry and commerce, one discovers that many of them started life because of the inspiration and efforts of one or two men. They begin as small firms and as a result of the practical expertise and enthusiasm of

one or two people they have sometimes grown rapidly into large national firms, beyond the wildest hopes of their founders; at other times they have grown steadily, and when opportunity has knocked they have taken full advantage of it and have achieved a position and size of national importance.
The great advantage to the national economy of the small, business is its flexibility and the enthusiasm and willingness to take a risk on the part of those who are engaged in that business. There is special virtue in the fact that many small businesses are able, from the very nature of their size, to seize what at the time appears to be a small market and to exploit it and expand it, to bring new ideas and energy into established markets, and to disturb any complacency among those who are already established in a market. All these are vital contributory factors in the smooth and efficient running of our economy.
Why has the small company received so much attention during the last year or so? I am glad to say that public comment has been sympathetic. It is not just a natural sympathy for the small man, which is a British characteristic. It arises from a growing fear that the balance between large firms and their smaller competitors has been dangerously tilted against the small firm in favour of the large. But both the large firms and the small firms are necessary if our economy is to function efficiently and if we are to prosper.
The fashion, however, has changed. It has now become respectable to talk about economies of size, and mergers are almost a necessity for up-and-coming businessmen. On the other hand, certain difficulties face the small company today which either did not exist in the past, or existed to a much lesser extent.
We cannot this evening talk about taxation, although my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston indicated certain difficulties in that direction. Certainly, estate duty still plays a major part in the difficulties of the smaller firm, often diluting the interest and enthusiasm of the creator of the business, possibly at a time when he has put a business on its feet, when he has reached the prime of his experience and enthusiasm, and diverting his attention to getting rid of


the business or of preserving it for his heirs and successors. It is sad that that should be so. Our estate duty rates and the amounts of wealth which attract these high rates are out of proportion by modern-day standards when looked at in comparison with other nations in the free world.
We seem to be living in a permanent credit squeeze. This affects more stringently the small, private company than the public company. The former relies to a far greater extent on family funds and the standing and respect which the proprietors of the company have at the local bank, on which they have in the past always felt free to draw for business expansion. But the bank manager today, even when satisfied that the need is legitimate and the credit sound, is often powerless to help. This often results in up-and-coming expanding private companies being held back while the larger company which has worked out its credit limits with the bank in good times is able almost to laugh at the credit restrictions. I know of cases where such companies keep to the limits of their credit so that they can use the money at a profit in a way that they would not otherwise have dreamt of doing.
These are some of the many reasons why small businesses are in special difficulty and need special sympathy. This is not the time for us to spell out our views on the subject, though there are certain factors which the Government must bear in mind. First, life is more complicated for small businesses and an opportunity should be given for them to seek guidance on such matters as finance, management and marketing from the sort of organisation suggested my my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Weatherill).
The advice of such an organisation should not be forced on firms, but it should be available if sought. It might not be needed if the business climate could be changed, with a return to confidence, tax reductions and less Government interference. The attitude and "feel" that exists in the country can play a major part in the future of the companies about which we have been speaking. Confidence often plays a vital part in the expansion of these businesses.
We are thankful to the Government for certain steps that they have taken this year in relation to small businesses, notably in connection with taxation, which we cannot discuss tonight. The taxation alterations have helped and my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston is out of date in saying that money lent to a private company by proprietors does not have the interest allowed for corporation tax purposes. It does, provided it does not exceed 8 per cent., and this change will be of tremendous help. The disparities relating to directors' salaries and interest should not have been placed on close companies in the first place.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston for having raised this subject. I hope that this debate will have proved useful, remembering that we have been discussing an issue which is of considerable importance to the well being of the nation.

2.15 a.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Edmund Dell): May I, first, join with other hon. Members in paying tribute to the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Lawler). I was interested to hear that he made history by speaking later at night than Mr. J. Astor. I admire the ingenuity which he worked the very varied concerns of his constituents into the discussion. I am sure that that ingenuity will serve him in good stead in other debates. He said that he would not follow tradition by speaking non-controversially, but it is my experience that over the years that tradition has been changed and more maiden speeches today are controversial than non-controversial. Perhaps in that respect he still follows tradition.
I am sure that in the course of his parliamentary career he will maintain the great Liberal tradition which has been upheld by his colleagues in the Liberal Party. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Michael Shaw) for what he said about the hon. Member's predecessor, who was a deeply respected Member of this House and who gave it great service.
I now turn to this interesting subject raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight). I hope that she will not want me to dwell on


the somewhat high-flown language she used at times, referring to constant and savage attacks on small businesses, with which I thought the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby dealt very well. I have some experience of small businesses, and to that extent perhaps, I should declare not an interest, but almost an interest. My father ran a small business for about 60 years. He saw his last customer the day before he died, in January, at the age of 89.
I am well acquainted with the difficulties of small businesses, the ups and dawns, the periods of expansion and of difficulty, when there are credit restrictions and the market collapses. I am, therefore, able to approach this debate with sympathy and concern. I recognise, as do the Government, the value of the small firm to the community as a source of new ideas and innovations. I do not know whether the hon. Lady has read an interesting study done by the United States Department of Commerce about two years ago on innovation for which Robert Charpie was largely responsible, and which showed the surprising degree of innovation created by small firms, their flexibility in reacting to market opportunities, their ability to produce specialised products in small quantities and sometimes their ability to expand into large firms and to be taken over at a high price.
Nothing that the Government have done would in any way justify the hon. Lady in saying that it is Government policy to bring about a situation in which there are no small firms. I do not think that she believes that the Government would intend to achieve such an absurd ambition. The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby has indicated to her certain taxation measures which the Government have recently taken for the benefit of small firms.
I am coming to a number of examples which I hope will help the hon. Lady to understand that the Government have an interest in and concern for small firms, apart from the recent relaxations in the Finance Act such as the removal of the restrictions on the part of the salary of directors of close companies allowable for tax.
Today, my right hon. Friend announced that the Government are setting up an independent committee, after consultation

with the C.B.I.—indeed, largely at the suggestion of the C.B.I,—to consider the problems which face small firms. I will come to that in more detail later. But the Government have no reason to be ashamed of their record regarding small firms. Quite the contrary.
The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby referred to the need for small firms to seek guidance. Indeed, he referred to an idea which has been put forward by some hon. Members and others that there might be established some organisation which would be a source of such advice—something on the lines of the Small Businesses Administration in the United States. We have said that we are considering that idea.
We are also considering the idea of using retired businessmen as a corps of troubleshooters after the model of SCORE, in the United States. Whereas for hon. Members opposite this is an idea, the Government can claim that this is an area in which they have acted—for example, in building up the British Productivity Council and assisting it with larger grants; the grant which we are giving for the period 1968–75 of £650,000 to the British Institute of Management; and the grant-in-aid on a pump priming basis to the Centre for Interfirm Comparison.
The hon. Lady referred to a pilot scheme to help small firms in the 25 to 500 employee range to make use of consultancy services. That was a considerable success. I hope that it will be the basis of a national scheme, the possibility of which we are now considering. Over eight months, grants amounting to £476,000 were approved for 313 applications from 245 businesses.
There is the Manpower and Productivity Service set up on a free basis by the Department of Employment and Productivity. In Birmingham, there is the pump priming grant given by the Department of Economic Affairs to the Aston University's Small Business Centre. We are now considering, as a result of the recommendation of the Hunt Committee, whether a further centre should be set up in the North-West or in Yorkshire.
There is the multitude of advisory services provided by the Ministry of Technology: the Industrial Liaison


Centres, the Low Cost Automation Centres based on universities and colleges, and the regionally based Production Engineering Advisory Service. This is not limited to small firms, but it is available to them, and it has small firms very much in mind in its activities.
I suggest that none of this is the sort of evidence which would prove that the Government are not interested in the future of small firms. The Government would hardly have done these things had they not had considerable concern about the interests of small firms and an awareness of the need to assist them. I accept that more needs to be known about the rôle of small companies in the economy—for example, as innovators—and about their special needs for expert advice and finance.
The C.B.I. and others have brought to our attention various problems concerning small firms. Some of these problems have been mentioned tonight—for example, the Industrial Training Act, which was passed by the previous Administration. I hope that the hon. Lady does not want to disavow what was a considerable advance in the provision of industrial training in this country, which provided the basis for it. I hope that the hon. Lady does not regard it simply as a burden on small firms. It is a most valuable advance. However, it was pointed out to us that this represents a problem for some small firms.

Mrs. Knight: I was aware of that. I was chairman of the Youth Employment Committee at that time, and I was most interested in that legislation. It ought to be put on record that no one could have guessed at that time how that Act would affect small businesses in the way that it is doing today, and I am glad that the Minister has shown that he is aware of that. It was by no means intended that this should be the result. Now that it it is having this effect it presents a problem, and that is why it was introduced.

Mr. Dell: The hon. Lady also raised the matter of statistical returns and the paper work which is again a considerable burden on small firms. These statistical returns are sent out, not because we are mesmerised by statistics, or if we are we are no more mesmerised by them than were previous Governments who for a

long time sent statistical returns to small firms, and to others, but to enable the Government to provide information which industry itself wants and presses the Government to provide.
Much of this information is very little required by the Government. It is provided by the Government at the request of industry, and it is precisely because the small firm is such an important part of the economy that we cannot provide the necessary statistical basis for adequate market research unless we send these statistical returns to them as well, but we always emphasise, for example, in relation to the census of production, that these forms do not have to be completed with an accountancy degree of accuracy, but that it is necessary that they should be filled in.
Another problem, again raised by the hon. Lady, is that many small firms complain about the disclosure provisions of the Companies Act, 1967. We have taken the view that the incorporation of a company with limited liability carries with it certain obligations. That may be questioned, and I referred to the fact that we are setting up a committee. This committee can look into this question, but this is the view that we have taken, and which Parliament took when it passed that legislation.
The hon. Lady raised a technical point of which she did not give me notice, namely, the matter of investment grants for sub-contractors, and, therefore, I am replying to this point from memory. The problem of sub-contractors and the fact that they are not eligible for investment grant was given full publicity during the passing of the Bill, and was discussed with the C.B.I. As far as I am aware, there are very few examples of difficulty caused by this because, among other things, the difficulties can frequently be got over by means of a lease. However, we have discussed this recently with the C.B.I., and if it can provide evidence to the effect that we are wrong in that, we shall consider it.
The hon. Member for Ladywood suggested that compensation for small businesses forced to move should be increased. It would be entirely within the terms of reference of the committee which we are setting up to examine this, and if it wished it could make recommendations about it.
The committee will consist of members who have direct experience of the problems of small businesses in some specialised field. The chairman will be Mr. John E. Bolton, who is Chairman of the Foundation for Management Education, and who has vast experience in this field. The other members are Mr. E. L. G. Robbins, the Vice-Chairman of the Industrial Training Foundation, Professor J. H. B. Tew, of Nottingham University, and Mr. L. V. D. Tindale, General Manager of the Industrial & Commercial Finance Corporation.
The terms of reference are to consider the rôle of small firms in the national economy, the facilities available to them and the problems confronting them; and to make recommendations. For the purpose of the study, a small firm may be defined broadly as one that has not more than 200 employees, but this should not be regarded as a rigid definition. It will be necessary to study in particular the profitability of small firms and the availability of finance. Regard should also be paid to the special functions of small firms, for example as innovators and specialist suppliers.
Other problems which the committee may look into are the effect of disclosure provisions of the Companies Act, the effect of estate duty and the burdens on small firms of the statistical and other returns required by Government. We also wish the committee to take note of what is being done to help small businesses and to consider how these facilities might be made more effective, particularly in the interests of dynamic innovatory firms. There are other subjects, such as the effect of current fiscal polocies, which are already the subject of continued study and which the committee could reasonably treat more briefly. The committee had its first meeting yesterday. The chairman told me that he intended it to be a long meeting. It may be still silting, but perhaps the members do not behave in quite the absurd way in which we do.
The hon. Lady referred to bankruptcies in Birmingham and provided figures which, I suppose, were derived from The Times article on 7th July entitled,
Small Firms Fight to Survive the Double Squeeze".

The article reported that there were 38 bankruptcies in the last quarter of 1968 compared with 17 in the same period in 1967 and hundreds of firms were trying to survive. It would be absurd to argue that the present stringent control of credit supply has not affected small firms in their activity. Small firms with small cash resources will be the first to feel the pinch, but there is no evidence of a general turndown in their activity as a result of this policy. According to the latest Board of Trade estimates and the C.B.I. survey, investment is at a high level. It would be wrong to generalise from the figures quoted in The Times. The quarterly figures are subject to occasional violent fluctuations. The national figures show an increase of only 7 per cent. in the first quarter of 1969 as against the same quarter of 1968 and the Birmingham figures for the first quarters of 1968 and 1969 were 22 and 24 respectively.
It is not always clear that bankruptcies and company liquidations are an accurate indicator of the health of the economy. The hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Dance) mentioned figures of voluntary and compulsory liquidations and said that they had been rising in recent years. I have not the figures by me and, therefore, I can reply only from memory, but my memory is that the figures for voluntary and compulsory liquidations have been rising for a very long period under Governments of both parties. The reasons are not those the hon. Member adduced. There are other reasons for this interesting phenomenon of a continuing increase in the number of voluntary and compulsory liquidations.

Mr. Dance: If he looks up the figures, as I am sure he will, the hon. Gentleman will find that there has been a very steep rise recently compared with the smoother graph before the figures I quoted.

Mr. Dell: At least the hon. Member should discount his case to the extent that there has been a continuing rise in the numbers under his party as well. Someone speaking at the Dispatch Box opposite on behalf of the Opposition could have provided figures of 1964 and 1954 which showed a very similar picture to that which the hon. Member has presented.
The hon. Member made a number of points about small farms, but as I understand that the next debate is about agriculture, I will leave my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Treasury, to deal with them.
Summarising, we are concerned about the future of small businesses. We recognise their contribution to the economy. I expect that we shall have a valuable report from the committee which will help to guide Government policy.

Orders of the Day — AGRICULTURE (CREDIT)

2.36 a.m.

Mr. Peter Mills: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the subject of the financial position of agriculture even at this hour. The position is so serious that, irrespective of the time, it is important that we discuss it.
I am concerned about the financial position of agriculture and the credit facilities available. The industry is not only very large but it is playing an important rôle in the affairs of the country. Given a chance and the wherewithal, it could play a much bigger part and could make an increasing contribution to our balance of payments. This is, therefore, not just a speech from an agriculturalist, although, of course, I declare an interest; I am concerned about the effect of the financial position of agriculture on the country.
The position is serious for agriculture and, therefore, it must also be serious for the country. Financial difficulties are being experienced by most people—we have heard about the problems of small businesses—and they are certainly being experienced in agriculture. These difficulties are the direct result of Government action and the Government must take the blame.
Farmers have had a serious blow from the weather over the past year. We had problems last autumn, in the winter and in the spring, and we have had to contend with considerable disease. All that has caused a serious deterioration in the financial position of many farmers and of agriculture in general. I speak from hard and bitter experience. I know what happened on my farm. We have lost about 40 gallons a day in milk produc-

tion—about £140 a month. If hon. Members add the extra costs which we have suffered, again as a direct result of the Government, they will realise how serious is my position, let alone that of countless farmers in all parts of the country.
I want the Government to intervene to halt the deteriorating financial state of farming. Of course, farmers should have been able to set aside reserves to enable them to contend with unfavourable weather. No one likes "belly aching" about it. We ought to be able to stand on our own feet. But for the last three or four years we have not been allowed to do so. Hon. Members opposite talk about 13 wasted years in agriculture under Conservative Governments. We did not have all the fat that we should have liked on our backs, but we had much more than in the last three or four years. The combination of bad weather, increased costs and no reserves has meant that many farmers have found it very hard to continue. It is necessary only to look at the number of farms for sale.
The nation cannot afford this situation. Means must be found to arrest the fall in farm incomes before the next Price Review. It is particularly important to provide adequate credit facilities without further delay, if the Government really want agricultural production to increase, and one almost feels that they do not. I believe that the Treasury does not have this at heart, and is putting the brake on agriculture. The Treasury must answer for much of the position that agriculture is in. I have my doubts about whether the Treasury and the Board of Trade really want agriculture to play the part it should play in the interests of the nation as a whole. Something must be done quickly.
I understand that bank advances to farmers have risen considerably. In 1963, when the "wicked" Tories were in power, the total was £381·4 million. It was £507·1 million in 1968, and in February, 1969, the latest figure I have, it was £518·8 million. So, since the Conservatives left power there has been a tremendous increase of £125 million borrowed by farmers from the banks. It is easy for the Government to say that they are now providing the facilities required. But in a way we do not want those facilities. The Government have


the late spring this year. So we are in a serious position.
The mid-June debate on agriculture did nothing to help. What a miserable show the Government put up! The advice and suggestions of the Ministers who spoke were pathetic, to say the least, in the present situation. In a sense, I have sympathy for the Minister of Agriculture and his Department. I do not believe that they are wholly to blame for what they said in that debate, for behind them again was the Treasury.
Monty Keen put it very well in an article in British Farmer headed, "No Real Help for the Cash-Hungry", in which he said:
The Minister of Agriculture, caught, poor man, in a pincer grip between personal sympathy and the Treasury's restrictions, could do little more than assure the Opposition spokesman, Mr. Godber, that he would look carefully (before turning it down, of course) into the suggestion of interest-free Government loans to afflicted farmers with bare fallowed land.
To give the appearance with the reality of a concession is a difficult feat of political conjuring. Both Mr. Cledwyn Hughes and his Parliamentary Secretary, Mr. John Mackie, managed it brilliantly.
So they did, but it was a pathetic act, because behind them was the Treasury putting the clamp on. It must take most of the blame for the position we are in and the failure of anything constructive to come from that debate. There was not a single thing to give farmers encouragement or help. Even the remarks about tax relief were not new, so why did the Minister make out that this was a new proposal? His remarks about bank lending were not correct, because the banks cannot lend any more. The ceiling has already been reached, and it is pathetic to say that agriculture gets priority. It may well do, but if there is no money in the till, or they are not allowed to lend any more, that is useless.
Let us look at the short-term and medium-term credit or finance which is available or which should be available to agriculture, because this is simply the cash which is needed at the moment to help farmers in their present position. I keep on my desk an excellent book called "Finance for Farmers and Growers", from Martins Bank. It says:
Banks are the primary source of short-term capital, and may agree to grant the farmer an overdraft to meet financial requirements of this nature.

How right that is. How expensive it is under this Government. How impossible it is at this time to do it. We can write it off for medium- or short-term finance. Banks cannot help any more. The Treasury is to blame.
In the case of the Agricultural Credit Corporation, Limited, things are slightly easier, but the rate of interest is 10½ per cent. There is F.M.C. (Meat) Limited, which makes available unsecured advances to assist in agriculture. It will give £10 for a bacon pig or £5 for a pork pig; 75 per cent. of cost for store cattle and 60 per cent. for ewes and store lambs. But here is the rub—again, it is the fault of the Government—they are having to charge 14 per cent. for pigs and 13 per cent. for cattle. What a nonsense. Those who keep pigs and stock know that the margin is not there to be able to pay that amount, so one can write that off.
Hire-purchase finance is well known"—
say Martins Bank and goes on—
and may cover various kinds of agricultural implements, vehicles, plant and livestock".
It makes one laugh. What is the cost? The sum ranges from 18 per cent. to 26 per cent. for hire purchase. Fancy paying 26 per cent. on hire purchase. The farmer who does so wants his head seeing to. Whose fault is it? It is the Government, the Treasury, especially, who have allowed this position to develop. There is no margin in agriculture to pay that kind of interest rate.
The book continues:
Merchants and tradesmen. A considerable amount of finance is granted to farmers and growers in the form of credit …
through merchants and tradesmen. Thank God for them. We should be in a worse and shocking position if it were not for them. The reason they cannot help more is that they do not come in a priority scheme and have had their overdrafts cut. This is reflected in the position of farmers. The Government should allow priority to merchants seeking to help agriculture over this difficult period. Every single thing suggested, as a direct result of this Government, particularly of the Treasury, one has to rule out because it is too expensive or not available.
That is the sad position of agriculture at present. It is all very well to be critical, but what can one suggest that the


brought this about. There is a general feeling that at present farmers are less credit-worthy than they were, largely because of the effects of the bad harvest and Government should do? I hope that we shall have no more of the pathetic nonsense we had last time, but a clear statement of what the Government will do to help agriculture.
Banks should be allowed to lend more where farmers are creditworthy. Ceilings on ovedrafts could and should rise, in the interests of agriculture, and far more important, in the interests of the nation as a whole and of the part which agriculture can play. This is not an unreasonable request in view of the importance of agriculture. Interest rates are crippling and need to come down now. Perhaps the Government would consider whether a special concession could not be made. Priority should be given to agricultural merchants who are playing such a big part in financing agriculture. If the banks are lending £518 million, the merchants are doing an equivalent amount. Because of the part they are playing, they should be allowed priority of help as well.
I hope, too, that the Treasury will think about spreading income tax demands over three years, which would help agriculture as a practical step. Serious consideration should be given to a special review. It is obvious that a better end price for our products would help. We do not really want to borrow money. We want to be able to finance these things out of the profits we make.
We come back to the problem we have mentioned many times, but which the Government fail to appreciate—the need to control imports. These huge imports sap the confidence of our industry. They lower the end prices for our farmers. The more we import—especially the heavily subsidised imports—the less is paid for the farmers' end products. I cannot understand why the Government cannot see this. Again I believe that it is the clammy hands of the Treasury and the Board of Trade which are stopping import substitution. A large proportion of last month's increased imports consisted of food.
The position is serious for the industry and the country. Credit is expensive and difficult to obtain. Agriculture lacks working capital, the wherewithal to tackle

the job the Government have said it should do. No longer can we live on just hope and vague promises. What is needed is Government action. We cannot let this serious matter go on sliding.
I hope that the Minister of State, Treasury, will reverse the pathetic performance we had in last June's debate and give the industry more tangible evidence that the Government mean business. I hope that he will allay some of my fears.
What will happen otherwise? Farmers will become more and more cynical, will withdraw more and more into a sort of shell. The easiest way for me to reduce my overdraft is to get out of my pig enterprise and sell it off, just when we want more pig production. I should be able to sleep more quietly. Do the Government want agriculture to reduce production? I hope that we shall hear something concrete from the Government tonight in helping to solve this very difficult problem.

2.55 a.m.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: I intend to make a largely constituency speech, but I am particularly glad that the Minister of State, Treasury, and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture are present to hear the debate, because, although I shall relate most of my remarks to my constituency, they will apply to other areas, especially in North Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire.
I told the Minister of Agriculture in a letter which I wrote to him on 2nd June and of which I sent a copy to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that in May the rainfall in the northern part of the Isle of Ely was five times normal. One inch of rain is equivalent to 113 tons of water per acre. Normal rainfall in May in the Isle of Ely on the fens concerned is about 130, average over nine years. In 1967, it was 301 tons; in 1968, it was 320 tons and this year it has been 636 tons.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) for raising this subject. I fully appreciate that he was taking a more general line, but I have tried to explain to the Minister of Agriculture the need for more selective assistance for people who have been affected by the rains in May. My constituency has been hard enough hit. I understand that North Lincolnshire and


South Yorkshire have been so badly hit that farmers have been literally in tears, with utter despair facing them and knowing perfectly well that the crops they drilled or the potatoes they set would not be gathered this year, or, if at all, in quantities so small as to make the harvest totally uneconomic. They have been more grievously hit than ever before in living memory.
I appreciate that the Treasury has a problem, having got our financial affairs into the mess they have. This parliamentary day, which has now spilled over from yesterday into the calendar today, is very glum for me, not least because of the astonishing announcement from the Foreign Office earlier this parliamentary day that we have had to borrow £50 million from the Germans. I suppose that at the next Labour Party conference, instead of singing "The Red Flag", the delegates will sing "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles". It is a humiliating position when our economy is in such a parlous condition that to keep going at all we have to borrow £50 million from the Germans over and above the £3,000 million which the Government have already had to borrow elsewhere. I therefore appreciate that the Treasury is in a jam when it comes to helping anybody specially.
At the same time, the Government are committed to a long-term agricultural expansion policy. The Parliamentary Secretary very properly said in an otherwise inadequate speech:
I must generalise a little. One bad year does not drive a farmer off the land any more than one good year makes him a reckless spendthrift"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th June, 1969; Vol. 785, c. 98.]
I am acutely aware of that, but I hope that the Treasury will recognise that if it wants to support an agricultural expansion programme, it is no good thinking in terms of one year only and that if it wants to encourage expansion over the years ahead, it has to ensure that farmers do not go under in the meantime.
The Treasury is a Department of which I have long had the utmost suspicion and often a deep loathing, for many reasons. There is no Department which has more blood on its hands because of its attitude to defence between the wars. There is no Department which has exercised more nepotism throughout the

Civil Service to have its way. There is no Department which makes it less possible for people to give of their best. Its attitude has always been one of maintaining its control of the whole Government machine regardless of the agony it causes anywhere. I am being very rude about the Treasury tonight, but I have the highest respect of the Minister of State and the deepest sympathy for any Minister who finds himself involved in the ghastly machinery which the Treasury represents. I therefore absolve him of any malevolence, but the system in which he finds himself is one which he should do something about changing.
The Treasury operates in a way which would not be tolerated in any commercial enterprise. Its real rôle should be that of a financial director. When the "board"—in this case, the Cabinet—decides on a policy in the interests of the country, it should be the job of the financial director, as much as any of the others, to further that objective. Contrary to industrial practice, the Treasury turns itself into a braking machine and does its best to ensure that every possible impediment is put in the way of those who are trying to pursue a policy. We are the most over-monitored nation on earth, and no Department is more responsible for this than the Treasury. If it adopts this attitude over agriculture, it will stultify any efforts by the Minister to get an expansion programme going.
The Financial Secretary, who is an agreeable fellow, and can keep us up later than most, wrote to the on 9th July, responding to my letter to the Minister of Agriculture, a copy of which I sent to the Chancellor. He referred to the debate on 16th June, and said:
Since you wrote, the problems created for farmers in your constituency and other parts of the country by the exceptional weather conditions in the past year have been debated in the House on 16th June. There was a very full discussion, in which you took part, and I think the Government's position was set out fully by the Minister of Agriculture and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. I would only add a word on the position as regards bank credit.
In our present economic situation there can be no general relaxation of the ceiling restriction on bank lending. But, as you know, agriculture was specifically mentioned in the guidance provided to the banks by the Bank of England as a priority category of borrower, within the ceiling, because of is import saving role. That still remains the position. It is for


banks to reach decisions on individual cases in the light of their general lending position and of their normal commercial criteria, as well as of the guidance issued by the authorities. I am sure bank managers will consider credit applications from farmers hit by the bad weather as sympathetically as they can
This letter totally ignores one of my principal points to the Minister in my letter, of which the Minister of State has seen a copy—namely, that, because of the three bad years running which farmers have had in certain parts of my constituency and some others, many farmers are so totally "in the red" that they dare not borrow any more at the present rate of interest, even if the banks would lend it.
I am asking for special treatment for the individual farmers most severely hit. One might ask how they are to be identified. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture will know, even if the Minister of State, Treasury, does not, that if a crop of potatoes is under water for more than 48 hours it is not likely to be harvested. In my constituency, quite a large acreage of potatoes was under water for three days. It is virtually a write-off.
On top of that, because of the bad conditions last autumn, nothing like the usual acreage of wheat was drilled. As a result, many farmers drilled barley in the spring. A couple of weeks ago, I went around my constituency to see the aftermath of the appalling weather in May. I have never seen barley looking worse in my life.
Another crop grown in the Fens which is a great help to many farmers is peas for vining and threshing. I have never seen them in a worse condition. It is not a guaranteed crop, but it brings in cash often when nothing else will. This year, all too often the crop is a write-off.
If the National Advisory Service, the agricultural executive committee system and the Potato Marketing Board cannot provide the Ministry with the identification necessary to single out the farmers who are severely hit, I wonder what they are there for. I am convinced that this can be done. It is no good the Treasury saying that the banks can give priority to agriculture and, at the same time say, that there can be no general relaxation on the ceiling restriction on bank lending when the banks often are having to bring

down their individual ceilings. We are now in a straitjacket from the point of view of agricultural credit.
I submit that my constituency and others which were hit severely by the May rainfall should get selective direct grants. These men must be kept going. Some of them are on their beam ends. For the first time in their lives men have gone into the bank. Many of them went in last year for the first time. At the present rate of interest there is no likely return, certainly not this year. We must carry these men over into the 1970 cropping season. I suggested in my original letter to the Minister that one way of doing this would be either loans at a specially reduced rate or loans at a deferred rate of interest so that at least there could be some money coming in before the interest had to be paid.
I calculate that we shall have one of the worst harvests in the Fens this year that we have had for many years. The yields will be down. This calls for special treatment. It is no good the Parliamentary Secretary saying, as he did in the debate in June, that in farming one year must be taken with another. Farmers have had three bad years in a row. The one means that normally carries them through has now dried up on them. Even if it had not dried up, many of them could not afford to use it at the present rates of interest.
Therefore, if the Government mean what they say about a fairly quick expansion of agricultural production they must do something to carry these farmers over into the 1970 cropping season. If they do not, they will betray these farmers. It is no good waiting on the N.F.U., because the N.F.U. in my experience from an agricultural house point of view, can only put forward a case on behalf of the industry as a whole. I am asking for special treatment for selected people who can be identified by those capable of identifying them. I am asking for something to be done for these people over and above anything which has been said by the Minister. If we have to rely upon the Treasury carrying on in its old traditional way, we shall never see the agricultural expansion programme that we all desire.
I hope that we shall see the injection of new thinking into the Treasury so that whatever decisions are taken in the future the Treasury can be committed to


them and have the obligation of furthering the projects which have been decided upon instead of acting as a stultifying, unimaginative monitor.

3.3 a.m.

Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: We have been told that the Government have an import substitution programme. I say "we have been told", because unless we had been told it we would not gather it from any external evidence. A Question of mine a few months ago elicited the Answer that imports of temperate foodstuffs had actually increased. Half of the increase was attributed by the Minister to devaluation. This is not surprising. The reason the import substitution programme has failed entirely and the recommendation of the National Economic Development Council abandoned in practice, though not verbally, is that the capital necessary to finance it has not been forthcoming. There is a reason for everything, and that is the reason for the failure of the import substitution programme.
What was needed was £230 million right away and £110 million a year injection of capital. What we have instead is a monumental increase in costs directly attributable to Government action, quite apart from the natural disasters for which nobody, neither the Government nor anybody else, is to blame. The Government are directly to blame for the high interest rates and for the increase in S.E.T. These are definite, measurable increases in cost for agriculture.
Agricultural Mortgage Corporation loans, where available, are priced at 10¼ per cent. What crop must a farmer grow to be able to sustain an interest rate of 10¼ per cent.? Nobody has told us and, of course, it is not happening.
Successive Ministers have mouthed meaningless words about credit priorities for agriculture. They remind me of a station-master who tells the passengers, anxiously waiting for the last train, that they will have priority on the next one, well knowing that the lines have been taken up and that a train will never come.
What is the good of writing to hon. Members, making statements in the House, answering Questions and each time saying that within the global limit on bank lending the banks have been asked to give priority to agriculture, when

the Minister making such a statement well knows that the amount of money that the banks are allowed to lend is being reduced? It is just like the station-master on the platform where the rails have been taken up. The train will not come. The reason it is not coming is that the Treasury has issued instructions that the money must not be lent. It is as simple as that.
If the Government were serious about their import substitution programme, they would give it the same priority that they give to export industries. They do not do this. Export industries can still get bank loans at a special, artificial rate of 5½ per cent. What the farmers have to pay, if they are exceptionally lucky, is 1 per cent. above Bank Rate, or 9 per cent. In many cases they have to pay 1½ per cent. above Bank Rate.
That means that agriculture is having to pour out between £45 and £50 million a year in interest. At the same time, it has to find extra working capital to lend money to the Government in the form of increased S.E.T. The best estimate that I have been able to get from the clearing banks is that of the increase in bank credit to farmers in the last year, at least one-third—this is important, and I ask the Minister of State, Treasury, to take it in—was not new capital formation but was accumulated interest on existing loans which the farmers are unable to pay.
I hope, therefore, that nobody will get up at the end of this debate and tell us that as loans to farmers have risen by £37 million during the last year, this is to be taken as a measure of the capital injection into agriculture from the banks, because it is nothing of the kind.
Moreover, that is not the whole story, because the bank squeeze has also applied fairly viciously to the agricultural merchants who supply farmers on credit. The farmer has, therefore, been forced into the bank, and part of the increase of £37 million in so-called loans to agriculture is merely a transfer of credit from the agricultural merchants to the farmers. When the ultimate recipient of the credit is the same person—the farmer—it does not represent any net increase in lending. This is at a time when, to carry out the programme to which the Government have given public acceptance in this House, an injection initially of £230


million and then of £110 million a year is needed. This is the measure of the complete failure of the Government's policy.
Of course, it is worse than that, because it is not only agriculture which is suffering: it is the nation as a whole. Every part of our economy is suffering from the balance of payments crisis and the panic measures which the Government have adopted following it. The one and only course of action open to the Government to break the back of the balance of payments problem is import substitution, and the only way to achieve import substitution is by a massive increase in agricultural output, and, as "Neddy" has pointed out, the only way that will be achieved is by a massive injection of capital into the industry.
There are, after all, two forms of prudent farming—high farming and low farming. We can either reduce our costs to the minimum by a low-farming policy so output per acre is right down; or our flexible costs or variable costs are minimised. We have no alternative to doing that if we run out of working capital, because the option of a high-farming policy, which is what the nation needs, and which even the Government see the nation needs, is an impossible option if we have not working capital to finance it. It is well known that a large number of improvement grants are not being claimed because the finance is not available to supplement with £3 every £1 the Government put on the table. If the £3 are not there for the £1 from the Government, the £1 might be a £1 million for all the use it is to the industry.
I say again, it is not only the postion of the individual farmer which is at stake; it is the position of our entire economy, which is dependent on the import substitution programme, and the linchpin of this is availability of new capital.
In the Price Review debate I endeavoured to draw to the Minister's attention—such a task is beyond many people's ability, including my own—but I endeavoured to draw to his attention, the fact that new capital formation within the agricultural industry depends upon the difference between receipts and total costs—not just the costs of Price Review

commodities but total costs. My hon. Friend has just referred to the pea crop, which has been ravaged by the weather. This is a source of income to the farmer; equally, the cost of planting it is a cost to the farmer. We need to look at the rising total costs, not just the costs of Price Review commodities, because it is the difference between the cash flow in and total costs which constitutes the ability of the industry to finance its own capital development, and here we have a sorry tale, too.
The fact that the bad weather is not the Government's fault is neither here nor there. The result of it on capital formation is exactly the same whether it is the Government's fault or not, but when a natural disaster of this kind comes upon us, then, if the Government want to see their own policy of import substitution carried out, they must make further adjustments of their own policy.
What, then, do we need? First, we need a special Price Review, because major items of costs, S.E.T. and the cost of bank credit, have skyrocketed. Secondly, loans to agriculture need to be placed on the same footing as loans to the export industries. Agriculture should have the same credit terms available to it.
It is no good Ministers talking about giving priority to agriculture if they do not mean what they say. One cannot give priority to everybody or one ends up in the situation so graphically described by W. S. Gilbert. Priority means putting a given category ahead of other categories.
If priority is to be given to agriculture so that the selective expansion and import substitution programmes can be met, it can only be done by giving the same priority to agriculture as is given to the export industries. Unless and until the Government are prepared to give this priority, all their words count for nothing. The industry does not need words. It needs more capital at a price which can be serviced by the productivity in the industry.
My hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) quoted hire purchase rates as being more than half the amount allowed by law to moneylenders—4 per cent. per month, or 48 per cent. per year. And the rate quoted by my hon. Friend was more than half of


that. That is the situation which has now been reached. If the agricultural industry succeeds in borrowing money at these prodigious rates of interest, it will result in a round of inflation that will torpedo the Government's prices and incomes policy. It is, therefore, not even prudent to make money available at that price.
The Government must treat the agricultural industry in the same way as they treat the export industries, since it is the only way in which their own policy and the national interest can effectively be served. It is already far too late to meet the "Neddy" target for 1972–73, but it is not too late to start to carry out a policy which could lift us out of our balance of payments crisis. I appeal to the two Ministers who are present to get down to it and give the House action, not words.

3.23 a.m.

Mr. J. E. B. Hill: After three weeks of the superb weather which we have been enjoying, many people are apt to say, "I suppose agriculture has now caught up after the damage which was inflicted on it by the bad weather of last year." Like my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), I have seen many areas which are empty of any agriculture at all. The fine weather is of no help to them.
I must declare an interest. We have a lot of land with no crops on it at all, and I am as short of credit as any of my farming neighbours. But nothing that will happen this year will restore the damage done to the last harvest. It is difficult to realise that we are two-thirds of the way through the first year of the Government's four-year import substitution programme.
Any expansion programme needs capital in order to cope with the increasing amount of fixed investment and the larger scale of business requires further working capital. The N.E.D.C. report to which my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) referred suggested a £220 million per annum extra import saving programme as being feasible. That programme would have needed £230 million fixed capital on a once-for-all basis and an annual increased working capital of £110 million a year. But the Govern-

ment programme was for £160 million of import saving; and I suppose that that would need between one-half and two-thirds of the N.E.D.C. capital figures.
One could modestly put the need at an extra fixed capital of £120 million, with £60 million of working capital. But in answer to a Question in April last, the Parliamentary Secretary said:
Total bank lending to agriculture increased by £36 milion in the year ending February, 1969, while other lending, through the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation, has gone up by £24 miliion, so it is obvious that farmers are getting the credit they require".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd April, 1969; Vol. 781, c.: 475.]
That inference was as wrong as it was complacent, because the total of £60 million extra against an income shortfall of £40 million as between the year just ended and the preceding year does not begin to cover the needs of expansion. Indeed, much of the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation's extra £24 million lent out was for land purchase and not for expansion.
Similarly, when the rates were raised to 10¼ per cent. on 29th April of this year, the A.M.C. chairman said:
It is difficult to see how owner-occupiers can produce enough to make enough out of farming to pay this sort of interest rate.
It is clear, therefore, that farmers will not be willing to incur this rate of interest to finance possible expansion on a permanent basis.
With the very high prevailing rates of interest, it is time to again consider whether it is wise to keep the rate of interest on A.M.C. loans the same throughout the period of the loans and whether we should provide for a refinancing of such loans if and when interest rates generally come down.
As for the extra bank advances in February, for which the Parliamentary Secretary took such credit, they were about 9 per cent. of total bank advances by the joint clearing banks. In the late 'fifties, which was a reasonably prosperous time for agriculture, the proportion of advances to agriculture by the banks was about 12½ per cent., of their total If the proportion today were 12½ per cent., that would mean an extra £150 million being available to agriculture, which would be a welcome change and would perhaps be enough to initiate the Government's programme.
The penalty now is that if the banks sought to do this, they would have to refuse credit to their other customers. Banks are saying, "We cannot lend to agriculture, even if we want to, without calling in money lent to other customers, and we do not want to lose them because we know that they are up against it just as much as the farmers."
Broadly speaking, banks are only able to lend working capital to harvest. They have very little, or nothing, available for medium-term growth and still less for long-term growth. Even if the banks were allowed to make further loans, how are they to be serviced and amortised by the farmers incurring them? The main source of agricultural investment comes from extra net income, virtually from the Price Reviews. It was calculated that the "Neddy" programme, which had to do with fixed capital at £230 million, could be dealt with assuming that a 25 per cent. grant for most of the fixed capital improvements could be amortised over a 15 year period at a cost of about £19 million a year. Similarly, the figure of £110 million annual extra working capital required to be amortised over, say, five years, for about £27 million a year.
Those were the calculations of an agricultural economist of one of the leading joint stock banks in The Times of 22nd February of this year. Even if we scale those figures down to match the Government's programme of £160 million import saving, there is no sign of these lesser amounts being made available in the Price Review. The Parliamentary Secretary has always tended to claim that there is a great increase in new fixed equipment in agriculture. The figures he quoted are that in 1963 it was £167 million. Then there was a plateau of about £170 million a year over the three years 1964–66. In 1967, it went up to £183 million, and in 1968 it was £211 million.
The hon. Gentleman says that shows that everything is going well with the investment required for the expansion programme. However, he is giving current prices and in real terms the effect of inflation will have reduced the value of those figures. More significantly, these are figures for gross new investment, including a large element of replacement.
The Ministry's economist, giving evidence to the Select Committee on Agriculture on 10th April, 1968, dealt with this when answering Question 464. Dr. Dexter, when asked what proportion of the new gross investment in fixed equipment was attributable to depreciation and not to new machinery said:
I think in agriculture for plant, machinery and equipment, it is much higher than 40 per cent.; the depreciation charges are almost as high as the gross capital formation. So that the net addition to agricultural capital in the form of plant, machinery and equipment is, in fact, very small; it is doing very little more than maintaining itself. For buildings, of course, it is rather different; a much larger element of the gross capital formation is for additions to the total stock. But we do not have any precise estimate of the depreciation element for buildings; we can make those much more easily for plant, machinery and vehicles.
That puts in its true perspective the claim that these figures show that all is well with the expansion programme. But more is needed. I must ask the Parliamentary Secretary, or the Minister of State, Treasury, if he is to reply, whether he is asserting that the Government's target is still to save an extra £160 million of imports by agricultural expansion in the four years ending 1972. Farmers and, indeed, bankers in Norfolk, and no doubt in the rest of the country, frankly disbelieve it. They see the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, however earnest his demeanour, continually being tripped up, as my hon. Friends have said, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. So agricultural policy has become a sort of Ministerial knockabout.
For example, we have had the enforced ceiling on bank advances which was later reduced to 98 per cent. That has rendered the alleged priority for agricultural expansion nugatory. There was then the Bank of England's now notorious letter trumping the Ministry's June letter to the clearing banks. The interesting point is that the Bank of England asserted that it laid down the rules at the time of devaluation, and that was that. But the Government's policy on agricultural expansion came a year later in November, 1968, presumably in the light of what the then priorities were said to be.
Lastly, there is the petty but deliberate discrimination against the agricultural industry in the last Finance Bill. It is almost incredible that the Government


should go out of their way, at a time like this, to penalise bank overdrafts arising from agricultural maintenance and improvement. In earlier days Ministerial conflicts on this scale would at least have resulted in a resignation. Now we are not going to bury a Minister, but what about the policy? If the Government no longer believe in agriculture's import saving rôle, they should "come clean" and say so. It is unforgivable for the Government to profess the end while continuing to deny the means.
I should prefer to see Treasury and Agriculture Ministers get together—I think that today is almost the first sign of any team work that I have detected during the last two or three years—and decide now that agricultural credit from the bank should be allowed to approach the old proportion of 12½ per cent. of total advances. That will get expansion moving again. They should also work out, between now and the next Price Review, what additional investment from income is needed to turn the Government's expansion programme into reality.

3.40 a.m.

Mr. J. B. Godber: It is an unusual pleasure that we have tonight in having a Treasury Minister to respond to the debate. We welcome the Minister of State, and we hope that we shall still welcome him when we have heard his reply, which may perhaps be overoptimism. In this short debate we have had some hard hitting speeches from my hon. Friends, but I hope that we shall have a full response from the Minister.
I do not propose to go into detail on the various issues. They have been forcefully put by my hon. Friends, and we had a debate on these subjects only last month. On that occasion we had a very unsatisfactory reply from the Government. They now have the opportunity to correct that lapse.
There is no doubt that had it not been for the late hour and the fact that there are many other subjects to debate many others of my hon. Friends would have wished to take part in this debate, because there is continuing concern, at a very high level, about this problem, and a feeling that the Government either do not realise, or do not intend to do anything about, the real problems which exist.
In the previous debate we made it quite clear that there were special problems relating to weather in certain parts of the country, and my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) brought out clearly his own problems. I hope that the Minister will give a sympathetic reply to the problems that were raised. When I spoke on the previous occasion, I said that that area, plus North Lincolnshire,. North Nottinghamshire, and South Yorkshire were the areas worst affected, and I suggested how these could be dealt with. The Minister of Agriculture has since said that what I suggested is impossible, but I sometimes wonder whether it is impossible, or whether there is a lack of determination to solve the difficulties. I recognise that there are difficulties, but the fact remains that nothing has been done to help the farming community in this regard.
My hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) spoke with great feeling and from personal knowledge of the present difficulties. He was loud in his condemnation both of the Ministry of Agriculture—I think that he used the word "pathetic" in relation to the speeches of the Minister and his Joint Parliamentary Secretary on the last occasion—and of the Treasury. The Minister of State now has an opportunity to restore Ministerial prestige after these attacks, and I hope that he will take advantage of this opportunity to do so.
In any debate on finance and credit for agriculture we have to remember two special features which distinguish this industry from any other. The first is that by reason of our system of agricultural support the Government are directly concerned with, and directly responsible for, the level of return to the farming community. The Government, by White Papers and Price Reviews, have brought down the return to the farming community.
If one takes constant prices—and the Government are very fond of doing that in relation to defence—and the returns to the farming community, one finds that the answers that they have given in the last few months show that compared with other sections of the community the farming community is worse off than at any time during the last 15 years. This is the truth of the situation. Against that there is the special factor of the


expansion programme which the Minister of Agriculture announced on 12th November last year, when he said that adequate resources would be made available for that programme.
Those two factors distinguish agriculture absolutely and completely from any other industry, and it is against that background, and bearing in mind the special problems created by the weather, that we are having this debate today.
The main issues have been spelled out by my hon. Friends, and I do not propose to dwell on them. There is one special point to which I intend to refer because it is essential that the Government should clear up the confusion which exists—and this was referred to a moment ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. J. E. B. Hill)—about the advice given to the banks in relation to loans for agriculture. We look to the Minister for a clear answer on this, and we hope that we shall get it, because we have had so many conflicting and evasive answers that it is time the matter was cleared up.
During the debate on 16th June the Minister of Agriculture said:
I should like to turn to the credit position. The industry already receives top priority within the ceiling for bank lending. I have been in touch with the joint stock banks and they have assured me that—as on previous occasions—they will give whatever additional assistance they can to help farmers with special problems due to the bad weather."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th June, 1969; Vol. 785, c. 69.]
We therefore understood that a special directive had been given to the banks that they would provide additional credit. Yet there seemed to be stories circulating that this was not the case, so at Question Time on 2nd July the Parliamentary Secretary was questioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) and then by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) and his final response was:
I will look into that point.
I later asked if we were to have a statement to clear the matter up, but we have had no response. We would have had no response before we rose for the Summer Recess had not my hon. Friend the Member for Torrington succeeded in getting this opportunity to discuss the matter tonight.
The question asked by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland was:

whether it is true that the Bank of England has written the letter to which the hon. Gentleman referred, which would appear to run absolute counter to the Government's policy.
My hon. Friend had previously asked whether the hon. Gentleman was aware
that the Bank of England has written to the joint stock banks telling them that letters expressing pious hopes about priority agricultural borrowing should be virtually ignored. …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd July, 1969; Vol. 786, c. 410.] 
This is the point on which we want clarification.
The Times, on Thursday, 3rd July, was quite specific about this. It said:
A substantial confusion between the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Bank of England emerged yesterday during question time in the Commons.
John Mackie, Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry, said that he would look into reports that the Bank had written to the commercial banks about lending to the farming community.
The Bank had considered it necessary"—
This I take to be what the newspaper says; it is not a continuation of what the Parliamentary Secretary said:
to write such a letter recently because of an earlier one direct from the Ministry to the London clearing banks in June. This letter requested the banks to take a lenient attitude on the question of farm overdrafts, because of the tight liquidity position and financial hardship of the farming sector.
That, presumably, was what the Minister referred to when replying to the debate on 16th June.
The article in The Times went on:
The Bank of England was concerned that such a letter from a Government department might confuse the clearing banks on the question of lending priorities and advance ceilings.
… the Bank's chief cashier therefore wrote to the clearing banks reminding them that the Ministry letter in no way affected the priorities previously indicated to them for lending and that advances to farmers were still very much part of the total that had to be brought within the 98 per cent. Ceiling.
The Bank of England's guide lines for lending priorities, originally set out at the time of devaluation and repeated several times since, spoke of the importance of financing for exports or for sectors such as agriculture with an import saving content.
There was clear surprise at the Bank of England that any Government department, let alone a non-economic one, should have seen fit to write to the clearing banks on a matter of this sort without consulting them.
There is, "clear surprise" in this House that such an extraordinary position should have arisen between Ministers and we look to the Minister of State to


clear up the matter. Was such a letter sent by the Bank of England? Did it completely discount what the Minister of Agriculture had said? Does this mean that all banks are reminded specifically that they are not to provide additional credit to farmers? We should be told tonight. We should be told precisely what instruction has been given to the banks.
We are told repeatedly that agriculture comes within the top priority for lending, but on many occasions I have been told that within the top ranking of priority there is a degree of grading and that certain export industries are given a higher grading for credit than is agriculture. Will the Minister of State tell us whether that is true, because the wording of Ministerial letters on the subject is always slightly vague?
The last letter which I have seen on the subject, from the Parliamentary Secretary to one of my hon. Friends on 17th July, stated:
The advice given to banks by the Bank of England is unchanged. Agriculture, in recognition of its import-saving rôle, receives priority along with lending for exports and invisible earnings within the credit ceiling.
It is always put in that way—that agriculture receives priority along with exports. But it is not said that it receives comparable priority with all exports and that it is in the top rank of lending.
A number of my hon. Friends, and I, too, have been receiving in recent weeks letters from constituents stating their difficulties in getting credit. On previous occasions the Parliamentary Secretary said that he had received no such letters, but I trust that he has now received them—and it would be interesting to know how many. We have had letters of complaint from creditworthy farmers who are unable to get additional or sufficient credit for their business. There is no doubt that a number of such letters have been received since the Parliamentary Secretary made a statement on the subject.
Summarising, it seems to me that my hon. Friends have made a devastating case about the need for agricultural credit. The Government must have a responsibility in relation to it, both by reason of their control of the economy of the industry and by reason of their

pledge to an expansion programme—a programme which cannot take place without adequate credit. The Government have shown a degree of confusion in their advice to the banks, if that article in The Times means anything—and if it is not true, perhaps the Minister of State will tell us so. We want to know whether such advice has been given, what is the position and what the Government intend to do both to help in the generality and to help in particular areas such as those which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Isle of Ely described so clearly. My hon. Friends the Members for Torrington and Tiverton indicated the problems of the West Country. Such problems can be found all over the country, although they ale worse in some areas than in others. They have been accentuated by the Government's general policy on credit. We have had neither sufficient guidance nor sufficient information from the Government to let us believe that they are not only aware of the problems, but are anxious to help. I hope that the Minister of State will take the opportunity to give us the information which we so badly need.

3.53 a.m.

The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Dick Taverne): I intend to reply to the debate on the issue of agricultural credit, although during the course of addressing themselves to that issue some hon. Members have ranged rather wider and have dealt with agricultural policy in broader terms. I do not wish to go back to the matters which were fully dealt with by my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Adjournment debate on agriculture on 16th June. One hon. Member described their efforts as pathetic and another quoted a criticism to the effect that they were brilliant. Anyone who read the report of the debate and reflected upon it would feel that full answers were given to the points raised.
There are three points which I wish to mention in passing before I come to the specific issue of credit. First, I am not sure where the hon. and gallant Member for Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) gets the figures showing three bad years. In 1967–68 there was a substantial increase in farming incomes. It is true that 1968–69 was a bad year. As for the present year, while recognising that there are severe problems in certain


areas, I suggest that overall it is premature to judge until we know the result of the harvest.
The second point bears particularly on the Treasury. The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely—and he was not alone—expressed dislike for the Treasury. One sometimes gets the impression, not only in agriculture, that there is resentment of the role the Treasury plays in government. This is natural, because the Treasury is concerned with the control of public expenditure. It is painfully clear from debates in this House that while everyone pays lip service to the need for overall control of public expenditure, everyone is enthusiastic for a particular policy which will increase public expenditure.
The Treasury, unlike other Ministeries, finds itself in the position of saying "No" to, and limiting, other Departments. Just before this debate we had a debate on small companies. There were eloquent speeches by hon. Members opposite calling for an end to restriction on small companies. Calls have been made for increased investment grants. An extremely good case can be made out for increased Government spending. Agriculture is not alone in being able to put up a good case for increases, but that does not affect the need for the Government to contain public expenditure within certain limits.
Just before I come to the Budget strategy and credit restriction, I would say to the hon. Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. J. E. B. Hill), who mentioned the variable rates of the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation, that that is a matter for the corporation. I am sure that it will consider what he has said.
We cannot discuss credit restriction on agriculture without having regard to the need for credit restrictions overall. A tight control of credit is an essential part of Government economic strategy. If monetary policy did not play its part, fiscal measures would have had to be more severe than they were in the last Budget. The Government have had to reverse their borrowing requirement, which was £1,300 million in 1968 and for which the outlook this year is that it will be a surplus of over £800 million.
At the same time, to reinforce this effect, there is also a necessary policy of

credit restriction in the private sector through restriction of bank lending. There can be no relaxation of this restriction on bank lending in present circumstances. This is not a painless process. Nobody pretends that it does not mean that some of the projects affected, whether in agriculture or outside, are not projects which are eminently worth while and that to some extent restriction on lending does not cause harm.
Of course it does, in agriculture, for small companies, and in other spheres, but overall, in the general interest of Budget strategy of diverting resources to exports, which produced moderate results last year, but not results as great as had been hoped, it has led to our being on current account at present in the black. Part of that policy requires the continuation of restriction on credit. Interest rates are high, partly because world rates are high; and our rates cannot be significantly out of line with those in other financial centres without loss to our reserves. They are also high partly because high interest rates are an essential element in a tight credit policy at home. We must remember that in the case of farmers, as of all businesses, the effective cost of borrowing is not the same as the nominal rate of interest.
At a time when credit is inevitably tight and expensive for all sections of the community, agriculture clearly cannot be completely exempt. It could be exempted from the ceiling on bank lending only at the cost of severe restriction on credit for other categories still within the ceiling. I was asked what the position of agriculture within the ceiling is, and I should like to state the general position before coming to the issue of the letter to the banks, which the right hon. Gentleman raised. Agriculture does not enjoy exemption from the ceilings on bank lending. The only lending that enjoys this exemption is special lending under the special fixed interest rates schemes for export and shipbuilding finance.
The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Peter Mills) asked that agriculture be treated in the same way as exports. Not all export lending is at the specially favoured rate of 5½ per cent. It is only the export credit guaranteed lending that enjoys the 5½ per cent. rate—in those cases where there is direct competition


abroad. Other export lending comes within the ceiling, and is on exactly the same basis as lending to agriculture.
The guidance issued to the banks by the Bank of England in May, 1968, is what prevails, and it is that within the ceiling, which is now 98 per cent. of what it was, and subject to normal banking criteria, banks are asked to give priority to lending for export transactions and finance for production and investment necessary to sustain increased exports, for the promotion of invisible earnings, or, as in the case of agriculture, for securing a saving in imports. All of those have priority over other lending, and they are all on a level. It is a matter for the normal banking criteria in each case what loan can be given. These are all on a par, and one does not have priority over the others, but they have priority over lending for private purposes and purposes not connected with exports or import-saving.
What was the position about the Bank of England letter? There is no divergence of policy between the Treasury and the Ministry of Agriculture. The policy continues to be that which I have just stated, and which was first outlined in 1968. Agricultural lending is, therefore, a priority category within the ceiling, and the Ministry's letter to the banks and the statement my right hon. Friend made was always intended to he read and interpreted within the context of this guidance. It was not a modification of the guidance.
But to ensure that the reports of the letter which found their way into the Press did not lead to misunderstanding, particularly in the banks which did not receive the original letter, the Bank of England made it clear to the banks that the letter was not intended to alter the priority status of agricultural lending within the ceiling. There is no question of reducing the priority of lending to agriculture. Its position is exactly the same as it has been since the guidance issued in May, 1968.

Mr. Godber: This is very important. I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman wishes to give all the information he can about it. It seems odd that there should have been one letter from the Minister of Agriculture followed by this other letter. He says this was due to Press reports. To enable the House to

judge, would he be willing to place in the Library a copy of the Bank of England's letter, so that we can see precisely what was said?

Mr. Taverne: I will consider that, but we have to have regard to the customary position of Bank of England letters to the banks. I said that it was due to two factors: first, the Press reports; and, secondly, to make the position clear to those banks which did not receive the letter from the Minister of Agriculture. But the overall position is clear. There is no conflict of policy. There has been no change in policy. Agricultural lending has not been up graded or down graded, but is exactly the same as before. The position should be clear now to all concerned.

Mr. J. E. B. Hill: Surely there is the distinction that the Government had promulgated an agricultural expansion programme of £160 million in import savings within four years. What means was there for ensuring that agriculture would get the credit needed to sustain that programme?

Mr. Taverne: What was vital to the selective expansion programme was the Agricultural Price Review and it was with this in mind that special encouragement was given to beef and cereals. My right hon. and hon. Friends have expounded their case and it goes rather beyond a debate on credit. I was asked specifically what is the position of the priority of agricultural lending within the overall credit restrictions policy, and I hope that I have made it clear.
It has been suggested by several hon. Members opposite that the ceiling should not apply at all to agricultural lending.

Mr. Peter Mills: I did not say that. I said that it should be raised slightly.

Mr. Taverne: Perhaps I am misquoting the hon. Gentleman. He said that the ceiling of bank lending should be raised for agriculture. The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) suggested that it should be outside the ceiling. If the ceiling is raised for agriculture or agriculture is exempted from the ceiling, it is going to be impossible to maintain the ceiling, because, as I said earlier about the Treasury having to see the overall picture, it is not only


agriculture which makes out a deserving case for credit being available.
Many other industries make out such a case. All the other priority categories which come within the ceiling at the moment and which are treated on a par have a deserving case for having the ceiling raised or for being exempted. It would be impossible to maintain the ceiling for other categories while either excluding agriculture or raising the ceiling for agriculture.
As I have said, credit restriction is not a painless restriction. At a time when the banks are under a severe degree of general restriction, it may be that they have to be somewhat more selective than usual, even in agricultural credit, if they are to avoid a disproportionate catastrophic effect on other credit users. This was illustrated in the June debate.
But there is no reason to suppose that the banks are unable to meet the farming community's requirements for working capital, even if they cannot meet all the demands made for medium and long term loans for expansion for the time being. A number of speeches have been made by hon. Members opposite explaining how credit worthy farmers have been refused loans and they have been met by my right hon. and hon. Friends, not only in the June debate but at Question Time, by requests that specific cases should be given. While it is not true that there is no evidence of credit-worthy farmers having been refused loans, there is little evidence of it.
I understand that the number of cases received totals about 30. As that is out of a total of 300,000 farmers, it cannot be said that there is overwhelming evidence that credit-worthy farmers are being refused loans. It should be remembered that there may well be cases when a bank refuses on the ground that a farmer is not credit worthy, but gives as its reason the general restriction. Per haps the President of the National Farmers' Union will produce some more examples, as he has promised, but so far there is no evidence that this tremendous restriction on credit means that creditworthy farmers are not getting loans.
In general, we believe that the banks are doing their best to meet the needs of the farming community within the ceiling in accordance with the guidance which is given to them. My hon. Friend and his Department will certainly consider any concrete evidence to the contrary, but it must be for the banks to decide whether credit should be given in any particular case.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hesitate to interrupt, but interventions prolong speeches and this is the eighth of 40 debates.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I realise that, Mr. Speaker. I merely wanted to ask whether the Minister would do anything about those 30 cases.

Mr. Taverne: They are being looked at by the Ministry of Agriculture.
I was asked whether merchants and suppliers to farmers and growers could enjoy the same degree of priority as farmers. This is obviously an important question. When businesses which trade with the industry can be identified as supplying especially to farmers, I am sure that the banks will have regard to their importance to the farming community. The Government agree that they deserve the same degree of priority as farmers for bank credit. But it must be possible to identify the business, and it is not always possible.
I do not deny for a moment that the general policy of credit restriction has led to difficulties. The difficulties in some areas are greater than those in others. Nevertheless, one cannot have a general policy of credit restriction which exempts agriculture or allows it to have a more favourable position than exports or other import savers. The general policy of credit restriction is essential to the Government's economic strategy and it is intimately linked with the fiscal policy as well. It has won results and in the circumstances I cannot hold out any hope that the policy will be specially relaxed in favour of the farming community.

Orders of the Day — HIGHER EDUCATION

Mr. Speaker: We are now embarking on the ninth of 40 debates. I have very much in mind the hon. Members who are waiting well down the list, hoping against hope that they will get in their subjects. Reasonably brief speeches will help.

4.9 a.m.

Sir Edward Bole: I apogise to you and the House, Mr. Speaker, for the fact that this is the second year running that I have sought to raise in education debate on the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, but I felt that before we broke up for the Summer Recess it would be worth having one more short debate about a subject on which we touched in the debate about universities at the end of January, namely, he evolving pattern of higher education. In view of your admonition, Mr. Speaker, let me come straight to the fir and essential point.
It is the I s no escape from the pressure of risi numbers of students seeking places in higher education. Supposing that we were to adopt as our objective the should be no more, or only a little m difficult in 1980 than in 1970 for tho at the top of our schools to get places. en this quite modest aim would imply a expansion of numbers of about 75 per cent. in the next 10 years.
I see no wa out of the essential fact. If it were t that the percentage of ability in out population were constant, so that at a time a fixed proportion were capable of reaching a given standard, there should be no difficulty, but all the avale evidence suggests just the opposite. The Robbins Committee rightly tho that the trend in the proportion of university age groups getting two Aels or more was a pointer to the scal expansion required. They thought the proportion would be just under 11 cent. in 1973–74, whereas it has proved be just under 12 per cent. five year oner.
In othords, what came to be known as the nd" in the proportion of qualified ool-leavers has now more than can up with the decline in the size of university age groups. Further-more, I convinced that there is no easy wut of this problem by saying,

simply, let all the extra numbers go to the polytechnics. The pressure for higher education and not least for university education still has a long way to go. 
There are only two ways that we could, notionally, resist it. The first is by deliberately restricting entry of the sixth forms, which is obviously out of the question. The second is by making competition for entry into higher education, particularly into the universities, a good deal tougher. Any such suggestion would give me a feeling of, "This is where I came in." The impact on the schools of increasing competition in university entry was the subject of severe comment in the Crowther Report as long ago as 1959. 
Incidentally, the idea sometimes advanced that university expansion was suddenly embarked on in 1963 under the impact of an impending General Election has no foundation in fact. It is one of the truths about the modern world that few scholars should be judged on their letters to The Times on contemporary or very recent political events. 
Having said that I think that there is no escape from the pressure of rising numbers, does this pressure mean that universities today are being encouraged to forget their true functions? I should be the last to underrate the pressures which bear heavily on universities now. but along with a number of distinguished university figures, I feel that, on the contrary, the face of university education is not only altering but altering, on balance, for the better. More has not meant worse. 
The standard of the first degree has been at least maintained and probably improved. The gap in esteem between Oxbridge and many of the civic universities has been greatly narrowed. A number of interesting new syllabuses have been devised, crossing traditional disciplines. There have been notable advances in learning—basic learning as well as applied. Most important of all, personal contact with undergraduates has in most cases been kept, despite. increased numbers. 
When people speak about the true function of a university, it is surely important to remember that universities have never been purely academic institutions. They have been concerned with learning, certainly, and with the criticism


of society, but also with training men and women to solve the problems of society. Again, if one feels, in Professor Michael Oakshott's words, that one of the purposes of a university is "to keep our intellectual inheritance in proper repair" it surely cannot be wrong to want to induct larger numbers of young people into at least a part of that inheritance. 
I sympathise with those university teachers who feel strongly that teaching and research cannot be regarded as separate functions. Any effective teacher or lecturer needs to keep up with the results of research in his special area, quite apart from the research which he does on his own account. 
I shall always feel that on this point the P.I.B. report was superficial. At the same time, the quality of university teaching—the contribution of a university to education—seems to me to be one of the true functions of a university; and I would be very sorry to see it undervalued, either at the undergraduate or at the postgraduate level. There was an extremely good letter in the Listener about this, in reply to a broadcast by Professor Elton. 
Thirdly, I think that the most pressing problem facing universities as we enter the 1970s is clearly finance. How can we reduce the unit costs of higher education? Let us always remember that higher education will not be anything like the sole claimant for increased educational resources. There are strong feelings today over the needs of priority areas in the big cities, strong feelings about the need for more resources for primary education and the need to make a reality of secondary reorganisation, the feeling, rightly, that it is not good enough just to change the labels on the school gate. Also, we must remember the claims of those whole sections of the community, especially in the north of England, which have tended to be left behind during the years of educational advance. 
I can only very briefly repeat a number of fairly well worn suggestions on the subject of finance. Clearly, every effort must be made to get down unit costs still more and to get better value for money. There is an urgent need for a more efficient utilisation of resources, for the sharing of costly staff and plant in a

number of university towns by universities and polytechnics, and for the common use of student union facilities, a point to which I shall return. I believe that we must consider the possibility of a loan element in a number of postgraduate courses anyway; and we must accustom ourselves relatively speaking to less provision of residence, with more students attending their local universities. 
I want to say one other thing on finance. There is is a danger that we may have in a number of universities a growing volume of higly sophisticated equipment but an insuffiency of certain basic equipment. This is a point which a number of vice-chancellors have made to me—the langers of having a sufficiency of highly sophisticated equipment provided by the research councils, but an insufficiency of benches d secretarial assistance. There is a danger that we shall provide nuclear physics very well, but physics itself rather as well. There is a certain analogy here with another subject in which the h Lady and I are rather interested—international development. There is an alogy here with project and non-project aid. It is limited quantities of "non-Pect aid", rather analogous to "Kippil aid" for India, which many univercites particularly need. Whatever the  sums we can afford for the univelies, it will be important to have a dest sum earmarked each year for ears and obsolescence, particularly  the benefit of the older civic universs. 
All of us in the Ho must be frank with the universities. must say to those who recognise the rmous importance of their contribution and the need to expand numbers st further, that there must be extra effc made in the 1970s, even if these are  what painful, to obtain possible v for money. I believe that this is real by a number of key university fig. It was a very senior figure indeed I will not mention the name, but the Lady will probably guess who I aferring to, someone whom we both  well and whom we particularly aspect—who described to me how he tly spoke to a number of vice-chance and said, "You will have to realise at nearly all the changes you will to face during the next few year m your point of view may appear what for


the worse, but this is no criticism of the universities. It is a measure of the absolutely vital contribution they are making to learning and also to education".
I hope that the hon. Lady will be able to say something about the date of the announcement of the next quinquennium grant, because we are already not so very far from 1972. We shall be having soon to consider the next quinquennium after that date and I should like to ask her specifically: will the announcement be made in this Parliament; and, if so, approximately when? I realise that there must be full discussion with the University Grants Committee and with the universities, but an indication tonight of when we can expect the next announcement would be very helpful.
It obviously would not be appropriate this morning for me to deal with the subject of student protest and dissent, with which we dealt fairly fully—some might say almost too fully—in our debate at the end of January, but I will make just one point. The role of universities as critics of society has never been more important, but there is one point on which I would welcome universities digging in their toes. I think that universities—I am thinking especially of the arts faculties—should stand firmly by the importance which they have always attached to the analytical element in intellectual training. After all, an effective critic needs a trained mind.
When I speak of the analytical element in intellectual training, I mean particularly three things. One is the ability to identity an issue correctly, which is vital for civil servants, or businessmen, and, incidentally, politicians. The second is the ability to build up one's ideas into an organised structure. Whatever our political differences in this House, I always think of the late Hugh Gaitskell as the absolute model of someone who could make a 50-minute speech sound like only half-an-hour. He had an unusual ability to build up his ideas into an organised structure, whether he was being controversial or non-controversial.
The third thing is the ability to forge appropriate techniques for handling any subjects. Let us take pride in the fact that subjects like the sociology of education and the theory of crime and sentencing are at least more scientific today than they were 10 or 15 years ago.
My last reference to university studies is one with which, I hope, Mr. Speaker and the House may sympathise. A recent article in an American journal said that students could be classified into four categories: scholars, playboys, careerists and rebels. In my view, there should be a bit of each of those four categories in every student.
Those are some comments that I wished to make about universities, and I now pass for the rest of my time to higher education outside the universities. As I understand the situation, present plans assume that by 1980, about 45 per cent. of those taking courses of higher education will be in what are known as the non-autonomous institutions. That leads to a number of important questions. I would like to say, first, one or two general words about what has come to be known as the binary system and then something specific about the polytechnics and the colleges of education.
This issue which has come to be known as the binary system—the relationship between the autonomous universities and the non-autonomous polytechnics and colleges of education—is a good deal more difficult and complex than many people make it out to be. I agree with those who say that critics of the binary system should ask themselves what one means by a completely unitary system and whether, indeed, the Robbins Committee really recommended this.
Looking back at my own speeches and those of the present President of the Board of Trade some years ago, I do not think that all the arguments that some of us used four or five years ago were simply perverse or stupid. It was not wrong to question whether the autonomous universities would ever, by themselves, meet the whole of the growing need for larger numbers of technologists and applied social scientists. It was certainly not wrong to point out, as a number of us did, the dangers of assuming that all full-time degree work should be brought within the university sector without having sufficient regard to the interests of those part-timers, mostly at sub-degree level, who gained a great deal educationally from working side by side with full-timers. There is all too often a tendency to forget the interests of the part-timer in higher education.
Another point which I remember making in March, 1965, was the undesirability, as I thought—and I still think—of too many professions couching their entry requirements and qualifications in terms exclusively of a university degree. If I may, I would just quote very briefly what I said at that time:
At present, in many cases there are two routes"—to the higher levels of a profession— "a university degree, followed by a period of professional training, or, alternatively, a course of professional study and training councils closely integrated to the requirements of the particular profession in question.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th March, 1965; Vol. 709, c. 760.]
I believe that the continuation of those two routes in a number of professions does have very real advantages. Indeed, it is even more broadly open to question whether the universities, concerned with learning—concerned with the criticism of society—can ever perform the whole of the function which I described just now, of training men and women to solve the problems of society.
I think that the criticism of the binary system has sometimes been a little bit facile. Yet, of course, there are a number of serious difficulties associated with the binary policy which cannot simply be glossed over. I mention just three, to which I have often referred in previous speeches. The first of them is this. Will qualified students and their parents be content with what must inevitably seem to many of them a second best? Here, I am also thinking of the feeling of the schools themselves. Any of us who go to secondary school speech days know very well that one of the points on which a school always prides itself is its achievements with regard to university entry, and from the point of view of the school—let alone that of the parents and pupils—I think that the idea of the university and polytechnic being completely interchangeable is, frankly, unreal.
I think that it will be particularly true of the growing number of comprehensive schools. I must say that, irrespective of one's views on the merits of comprehensive reorganisation, I think that some of the criticism of them which goes on is not particularly helpful. Certainly they are being forced into attaching very great importance to gaining university places, if only because of the criticisms frequently advanced against their academic records.

More generally one has to remember the truth of Professor John Vaizoy's comment that "second-rank institutions have never in anyone's experience had the drawing power of a front-rank institution".
Then the second point, which I have made before in this House, is this: will the polytechnics, which provide courses as good as the corresponding courses in some universities, be content with continuing on a non-university status? That is another point we always have to bear in mind.
Thirdly, how are the polytechnics to fulfil their rôle as institutions of higher education in the present financial situation of local education authorities? After all, polytechnics need not only buildings and staff accommodation but libraries and adequate facilities for research.
We should never forget the great pressure being brought today on our further education system—the overspill, as it were, from the universities going to the polytechnics and more and more students coming up from school at the lower end of our system of further education. I think it fair to say that the Robbins Committee never fully understood this particular sector very clearly, the sector with which Lord Eccles and Sir Anthony Part, as he now is, were so honourably associated, and this was surely one of the most fruitful partnerships in recent educational history. I do not think that Lord Robbins and his committee ever understood this sector as they understood the universities, and it has particular problems at present of severe financial restraint.
Well, now I have set out the problems, what can we do about the polytechnics here and now? I want now to make a certain number of specific suggestions. First of all, I would ask the hon. Lady if she could say something tonight about how the programme of designations is going. I think I am right in saying that so far only a few polytechnics have been formally designated.
Secondly, there is the important objective of making a reality of the Weaver Report. Parliament last year took an important step towards a more unitary system of higher education when it made both polytechnics and colleges of education more autonomous and more self-governing. We pay tribute to the hon.


Lady for the work she carried out in that respect. However, I have a feeling that some local authorities are still being somewhat remiss in not recognising the new style of administration which is needed.
Thirdly, I suggest that in view of the large proportion of students taking courses of higher education who will be in non-autonomous institutions by 1980, we need to know how far these institutions will be able to meet the needs of the likely school output and fit in with the likely student desires. And is there not a danger in talking about "the polytechnics" as if they are all the same kind of institutions when they manifestly are not? They are far more disparate than colleges of advanced technology were 10 years ago. We need more in formation about them.
I have mentioned the important matter of research. In last Monday's debate I said that the research in the polytechnics was essential if good staff were to be recruited and held. I was sorry to learn from the principal of one of the leading polytechnics that the Department had decided that the salaries of research assistants should not be eligible for payment through the pool. That decision has had drastic effects on research in the polytechnics.
Then there is the whole question of how far one should seek to blur the binary lines. It surely is important that universities should strengthen links with polytechnics and with colleges of education in their areas. I was glad to learn at Leeds, where I was recently lecturing, that Professor Nuttgens, a visiting professor and head of the Department of, Advanced Architectural Studies, had been appointed Director of the Polytechnic. That is a helpful precedent.
I would go further and suggest that in certain areas like Birmingham and Brighton autonomous and non-autonomous institutions could be linked in some kind of loose federation. Anybody who knows Brighton will know that one drives in past Falmer, and passes the University of Sussex on the right hand side, the college of education on the opposite side, the polytechnic a little further down and the college of art near the coast. Some sort of loose federation must come about. I would add the comment that the picture in Brighton is

not too bad a monument to "13 wasted" years.
I return to the important matter of the sharing of student union facilities. There are strong feelings among students on this particular subject. They have my sympathy. The disparity in what is offered in student unions is difficult to justify.
Lastly, should we not think about some kind of institution on the University Grants Committee model, or something analogous to it, to look at the growing expenditure in polytechnics and to seek to avoid wasteful duplication, and so on. Such an institution will not be completely analogous with the U.G.C. because of the need for a considerable local authority representation. But I believe some new machinery for planning expenditure in non-autonomous higher education must come.
I am sorry that the Redcliffe-Maud Report gives no help on this matter at all. We are not, of course, debating the Redcliffe-Maud Report tonight, and I will not attempt to do so. But I would register my personal regret that the Redcliffe-Maud Report gives little help over the organisation of higher education where some new machinery will be needed. Those are some ideas I wanted to put forward about polytechnics.
In connection with the colleges of education, I have always believed that it would not have been possible to have accepted the Robbins recommendations in 1964. However, one wants to see a closer relationship between the universities and the colleges. For example, I like to think that the universities are making their contribution to in-service training, and one should never forget the importance of university institutes and departments of education. I have previously said, both in the House and elsewhere, that my ideal would be not too large a department, with not too many full-time appointments, but very high-powered, and synthesising a number of disciplines for the benefit of children.
There is also much strength in the view—this has often been put to me as Opposition spokesman on education—that we should train a number of social workers in the colleges, side by side with teachers, to broaden their function to some extent.
We all recognise the importance of the colleges in the training of teachers of mathematics and science. We should, therefore, seriously consider the question of rationalising the provision in colleges by trying to have a number of strong points—that is, certain colleges which are particularly strong in maths or science subjects.
Last Monday, I made another reference to the future pattern of higher education. I said that I thought we should take seriously what has been said by, for example, Professor Martin Trow and Professor Pippard, about whether "the bachelor's degree of an approximate uniform standard throughout the system" does not play too central a rôle in English higher education. I say this with some diffidence because I know, from the evidence of my younger friends, just how much difference it makes if one is a graduate.
I sympathise with all those students who feel, after doing well at school, that they are entitled to proceed to a university course and get a first degree, even if they are not certain what they will do afterwards. Furthermore, we should never forget just how much the concentration on the standard of the bachelor's degree has contributed to levelling up esteem between older and newer universities. However, I cannot help thinking that Professor Pippard has a point when he says:
The rigid three-year course and the tradition of deep learning can for the intellectual elite constrain secondary and university science education into a strait-jacket of specialism which is increasingly seen, especially from outside, as menacing our future development, industrial and social.
He makes the point that students concerned with science and technology should spend two years on a course built around a general syllabus designed to educate rather than impart professional skill, and then to go on to more specialised education. I very much hope that the world of universities and higher education will look carefully at what men like Professor Pippard have to say. I was interested to see that his view was backed up by Professor Gambling, who was critical of the Swann Report. I am sure that we need more diversity of provision than we have had hitherto.
I regret having, at this point, to introduce a controversial note, but it would be wrong for me to speak today without referring to the open university, which got its charter yesterday. My hon. Friends, of course, recognise the importance of part-time degree courses, the importance of the work that has already been done at, for example, Birkbeck College, the availability of part-time degree courses in institutions like Hatfield and Enfield and the part-time M.Sc. course at Aston.
However, we must remember that the new university has come forward at a time when our resources for essential educational tasks are more severely stretched than at any time since the war. It is only right that I should remind the House of what I said on behalf of the Conservative Party when the planning committee initially put forward its report. I said:
The Opposition cannot hold out any prospect at this time that funds of the order mentioned in the Report can be counted for the future, particularly as this Report may well suggest techniques and innovations that could be adopted more efficiently and less expensively by existing institutions.
In thinking of the future of higher education I hope that we shall remember two things. Let us remember, first, that we are dealing with young people, already at schools, perhaps passing from primary to secondary school, with their sights, and those of their parents, already set towards higher education. For the most part they will be students of considerable ability, prepared to work had. We should remember that this is not just a matter of statistics, but aspirations in families. Some of them—but nothing like all—will already have had experience of university education. Equally, by 1980, we are likely to have about 350,000 students in full-time higher education who will be the first generation in their families to go on to full-time higher education of some kind.
The hon. Lady was right when she said at a conference we both attended that we are just about at the breaking point between élite higher education and mass higher education. I do not believe that we could afford to take a step backwards.
This has been a difficult year for universities, particularly for university authorities. They must often have felt misunderstood and over-exposed. Let us by all means be critical of those aspects


of a university, and of any institution of higher education, which we genuinely feel need amending. But let us never take pleasure in "knocking" universities as a sort of easy national sport. A thriving university system is essential if, as a community, we are to make a better job of mastering our environment. A thriving university system can help us to a heightened realisation of the possibilities of life. A thriving university system and higher education helps us to build an educated and thoughtful public opinion as an aspect of citizenship—a public opinion able to discuss, to debate and, above all, to discriminate.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must remind the House that there are over 30 debates ahead of us, and that reasonably brief speeches will help.

4.47 a.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mrs. Shirley Williams): I want to respond to the interesting remarks of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) by pointing out the sheer scale of the expansion of the last five years. This is not to differ from his point about the fact that expansion was thought about before 1963, but rather to show the way in which there has been a geometrical rate of increase, which has been most marked within recent years.
The right hon. Gentleman began by referring to the percentage of the age group going to university, and it is striking that in 1959 the figure was 4·9 per cent. of the age group. It had risen in 1963 to 5·1 per cent., not a very dramatic increase. In the following five years it went from 5·1 per cent. to 7·7 per cent., which it is today, represented by 212,000 university students. I am talking now only of university students.
One can make the point that Robbins set a target of 204,000 students in universities by 1971–72. We have already got 212,000 and it is likely that the target will be exceeded by 16,000 to 20,000 in the target year. All this has been paralleled by an almost equivalent growth in the number of staff, jumping from 16,500 university academics in 1963–64 to 25,500 in 1967–68—an increase of 54 per cent. Some of the memories that people have about what the past was like, and some of the

memories that lead people to make the remark that more means worse, are rather inaccurate. It is true, for instance, that the staff-student ratio, standing last year at 1: 7·9 is rather better than it was before the war. I shall be able to make the point later to show that a number of other things which are suspected or believed to be true are not true.
As the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out, none of this has been inexpensive. It is perhaps worth mentioning the order of increase that this has involved. In 1963–64, £110 million was spent on the universities, 69½ million of it recurrent expenditure. In 1969–70, £246 million will be spent on the universities, of which £172 million will be recurrent expenditure. That is more than a doubling in total expenditure and very nearly a two and a half times increase in recurrent expenditure in only six years.
If we take another source of support for the universities, that of the research councils, the increase of research council grants directly to universities has been from £7½ million in 1963–64 to £20½ million in the current year—more than two and a half times as great a figure.
I mention that because my remarks will bear out what the right hon. Gentleman has said about this being a fast expanding sector of higher education. It is also not a cheap one, and it is difficult to see it being sustained for the next 10 years at a rate of growth so great that it exceeds the capacity of the growth in the gross national product to begin to match it.
Before answering the right hon. Gentleman's specific points, I should like to mention further education and teacher training. I should like to cast a slight doubt on the right hon. Gentleman's assumed figure of 45 per cent. which he ascribed to the rest of the higher educational system outside universities. This does not quite take into account the colleges of education where, as he knows, the Robbins figures have long since been swept by. It is quite striking when we think how revolutionary Robbins was thought to be in setting a figure of 78,000 students training in colleges of education last year. In fact, the figure achieved was 106,000, the figure set by Robbins for as late as 1972–73.
Perhaps I may give another example in further education. Whereas the increase overall in student numbers is perhaps not


more than about 50 per cent., the increase for full time and sandwich students has nearly doubled in the last five years from 40,000 to more than 70,000. For those taking C.N.A.A. degrees, the figure has quintupled from 3,000 to 15,000 in the same years.
Although the increase in expenditure on further education has not been as great as in the university sphere, nevertheless, it has been substantial: from £163 million in 1963–64 to £254 million in 1967–68.
I do not want to bore the House with figures, but I wanted to set out the scale of the enterprise on which we are all embarked and to underline how fantastic has been the rate of expansion with which the universities, colleges and colleges of education have had to cope in recent years. It has been so great that it is not surprising that there have been strains; only surprising that those strains have not been greater.
I should now like to make a few comments on what the right hon. Gentleman said. I apologise if I do not deal with matters in the order in which he raised them.
First, teacher training. As the right hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, the Bachelor of Education degree will be a rising share of the initial training of teachers. We suppose, as was suggested originally in the Robbins Report, that as many as 25 per cent. of those taking initial training will, within 10 years, be taking the Bachelor of Education degree, although the figure now is only about five to 10 per cent., depending on the college. To my mind, the in-service Bachelor of Education degree is of great importance, unless we are to create, once again, as has happened in the past for historical reasons, two classes of teachers: those who are four-year trained and those who are three-year trained. The right hon. Gentleman once had to face the problem of building bridges between the two-year and the three-year trained.
Perhaps I might make one other comment about the Bachelor of Education degree and the influence of universities on it. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the universities can have a useful influence here, but I also feel strongly that the other influence which should play upon this degree, and not least upon the

training of teachers, is the influence of experienced teachers themselves. I suspect that not least in the probationary year, and to some extent in teaching practice, the rôle of the teacher is not as great as it ought to be, and we would very much like to see a greater interchange of view between colleges of education, lecturers, and serving teachers in respect of the practical training of students in colleges of education. We hope that it might be possible to bring the teachers more fully especially into the probation year which a young teacher undertakes after finishing his or her training.
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there is a great deal to be said for widening the courses in colleges of education. The right hon. Gentleman will know that some experiments are starting in the joint training of social workers with teachers and others in the joint training of youth leaders and those who are to be involved in youth work of one kind or another, again with teachers, and this is a development which we are anxious to encourage.
With regard to the point raised by the right hon. Gentleman about the centralisation of science courses, we are anxious to build on the strong colleges in this respect, but we think that there is a balance to be struck between the building up of strong science courses and the danger of removing the influence of science departments on those who will teach in primary and junior secondary schools where, above all, we need to get the first inspiration in science if we are to encourage boys and girls to choose to specialise in science at a later date.
I propose, now, to say a few words about polytechnics, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. I should like, first, to answer the right hon. Gentleman's question about the process of designation, and then to turn briefly to some of the other points. With regard to the process of designation, the position is as follows. So far, there are four polytechnics in existence, but 13, that is to say, an additional nine, have been approved by the Department, and any delays in their being designated simply turn on such problems as the appointment of principals, and matters of that kind. There is no doubt that all these will be in existence by the end of this year.
In addition, a further eight polytechnics are likely to be approved within a matter of weeks, so again they will be in existence by the end of the year. It is fair to say that more than 20 of the proposed 30 polytechnics will be fully in being by January, 1970. With regard to the balance of nine that that leaves over, there are two which present special problems, Birmingham, and the Coventry-Rugby combination. There are two which have not been submitted, so I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not hold this against the Department.
One of these is Central Lancashire, which turns on the positioning of the new town there. The other, for which there is no similar explanation, is the North London polytechnic, that is to say, the combination of Enfield, Hornsey, and Hendon, and we are anxious that this scheme should be submitted very soon. Finally, there are five polytechnics in inner London, the voluntary polytechnics, and the right hon. Gentleman will know that these have been delayed because of the legal difficulties which arise from the terms of their original establishments.
I turn, now, to comment briefly on what the right hon. Gentleman said about the binary system. This system is not strictly operative yet, because the term refers to the binary pattern between universities on the one side, and advanced further education and the colleges of education on the other. People often talk about the binary system as though it had been in existence for many years, when what they are really talking about is the further education system as we knew it, with little autonomy, and the university system as we know it. I do not believe that anybody can fairly judge a system which does not yet exist, or only in a very small part exist, because what the binary system is will turn a great deal on the second question raised by the right hon. Gentleman, namely, how far the Weaver Report is carried out.
Not only is the Weaver Report being carried out in the full spirit of its recommendations, but in some respects we have gone beyond it by trying to meet many of the requests for greater student—and not least staff—participation made since and partly inspired by the Report. The attempt to fit polytechnics into the pattern of the N.U.S.-A.E.C. agreement and what has flowed from that has been one rea-

son why there has been delay in establishing the polytechnics.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked whether polytechnics will always be second best to universities. They will be second best if they are in no way differentiated from universities, but if they maintain and develop sandwich courses and try to move into new types of courses and maintain close links with industry, they will not be second best but genuinely different institutions from existing universities. I do not believe that they will stay in their present position forever. I do not think that anyone could fairly say that. I very much hope that they will evolve in such a way that the ultimate system of higher education will be broader and even more liberal than it is today.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to restraint in the L.E.A. programme. As he knows, the capital programme is not financed in this way and problems of obsolescence such as those the right hon. Gentleman mentioned in respect of the civic universities are very much less except for a handful of cases because so many of them are of comparatively recent growth.
Finally, I turn to the crucial question raised by the right hon. Gentleman in respect of pressures of demand and I corroborate what he said. In 1967–68, 12 per cent. of the age group took two A-levels or more, on the Robbins criteria qualifying for university. On the criterion to which we still adhere, they would be entitled at least to try for a university place and implicit in that Report was the feeling that they had some sort of right to higher education.
We estimate that in 1977–78—probably it is a conservative estimate—that 20½ per cent. of the age group will get two A-levels or more. The rising proportion of A-levels has, in the short space of seven or eight years, turned every estimate into an under-estimate. Only recently a book was published entitled "The Impact of Robbins" by statisticians who worked on the report, which at that time estimated that there would be 62,400 pupils with two or more A-levels this year. That estimate was 15,000 short of the actual figure, which is of the order of 77,000—an increase of 25 per cent. To this, we must add the effect, as yet unknown, of raising the school-leaving age and the tendency that


it will have to persuade more children to stay on to ages beyond the compulsory age for school attendance. This is bound to have a further upward effect. The comprehensive education system will create pressures in the same direction. Boys and girls stay on longer in a comprehensive system than in a selective system, that is, taking secondary modern and grammar schools together. For the first time, many schools will be offering sixth form opportunities to those who had no sixth form opportunities until the last few years.
There has been, also, a genuine cultural shift. Far more parents than ever before are prepared for their children to stay on for longer education—parents who, less than a generation ago, would have thought that their children should go to work at the earliest possible age and who regarded apprenticeship as the highest goal. Now they consider that goal to be a degree or something equivalent to it.
How do we meet the gigantic cost to which the right hon. Gentleman referred? There are three elements in the present system which we should be extremely reluctant to sacrifice. The first is the support by public funds of our higher education system. There is no going back. That is not to say that we cannot have experiments—and perhaps the independent university will be such an experiment. What is certain is that the pattern will not change back to a very different and earlier pattern.
Secondly, most of us would regret seeing any massive deterioration—as distinct from a slight deterioration—in the staff-student ratio, which is perhaps higher in this country than in any other country of similar size and which throughout has been a feature of our type of higher education system.
We on this side of the House would be very sorry to see another feature of the system—the very extensive student awards—disappear, because we believe that it makes our higher education system socially equitable even though intellectually selective.
Contrary to what almost everybody believes who shares the "more means worse" attitude to higher education, our universities are more residential than ever before. In 1967–68, 39 per cent.

of students lived in university residences and only 16½ per cent. lived at home. It is very instructive, and casts a bright light on some of the strange myths which have grown up, to discover that in 1938–39 only 25 per cent. of the students were in residence, whereas 42 per cent. lived at home.
There are certain major advantages in our higher educational system. First, we have one of the lowest wastage rates in the world. Only 13 per cent. of the students in university fail to take a degree. There is also the advantage of the short first-degree course. This means that our system, though not cheap, is undoubtedly efficient.
We must ask ourselves how we can meet this greatly increased demand for higher education without abandoning essential features which we regard as a crucial part of the system, and still enable ourselves to offer opportunities as great to the children of the next generation as we have offered to this generation—and preferably even greater. I will list, briefly, some of the points which might be investigated and into which we are, in fact, looking. Before I do so, I will make one comment on the Open University. The right hon. Gentleman asked whether I could give an indication of the cost of the Open University. In the current year the cost is estimated to be about £1·5 million to £2 million and it is estimated to rise in 1970–71 to about £3·7 million.
Today, I have been at ceremonies, as has the right hon. Gentleman, to establish the Open University. I believe that the point which he made about variation in the educational system applies as much to the Open University as to the other institutions to which he referred. This will be the first significant effort to harness educational technology and mass communications in a basic attempt to offer second opportunities to those who were unable to take opportunities earlier.
I believe that the right hon. Gentleman was wrong to give such a guarded welcome to the new experiment, because without doubt we have among the population of the country a large number of people of considerable talent who were not educated in the era in which opportunities were as open as they are now to children and young people below the age of 25.
I want to list one or two of the ways in which we may be able to get a quart out of a pint pot.

Sir E. Boyle: Does the hon. Lady intend to answer the question about the time scale for the next university quinquennium?

Mrs. Williams: Yes.
First, there is room for some greater specialisation of faculties. Nobody believes that every university should have a department of astronomy or that every university should have a department of forestry. It is clear that there will be a move towards a greater concentration on some types of subject in certain universities. I do not mean what are called centres of excellence, but, just as we have business schools in London and Manchester and do not have such schools everywhere, so we have technologically advanced centres at Strathclyde, the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, and Imperial College, and would not expect to have them everywhere.
There is scope for sharing of equipment between universities and other sectors of higher education. There is already sharing of computer equipment and considerable sharing, not least by Bachelor of Education students, in university science laboratories.
I shared the right hon. Gentleman's view of the joint courses established in Sussex between Brighton College of Technology, Brighton College of Education and the university. This is a development we wish, not to discourage, but to encourage. One vice-chancellor, I think Professor Carter, of Lancaster, pointed out at one stage that it would be cheaper to hire a Rolls-Royce to take every undergraduate to share an expensive piece of equipment, than to duplicate the equipment, which indicates the room there is for economy.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to experiments in the sharing of student unions and other facilities. There is a joint students guild between Aston University, the College of Art and the Technical College. There is sharing of University Appointments Board facilities at Nottingham and Manchester with Further Education students taking degree and

degree equivalent courses. There is room for more sharing of such facilities.
One problem which needs to be sorted out is the different level of fees and the basis of fee payments as between university students and students in the rest of higher education.
I believe that we would be right to go to the students themselves and ask for their co-operation and help in producing a rational sorting out of the situation and one which will bear witness to their desire greatly to extend the sharing of student facilities.
On student accommodation I have pointed out that the residence factor has grown in the past few years in spite of illusions to the contrary and there are considerable savings to be made by experiments in self-financed student accommodation. This takes two forms: student housing associations, which my Department is discussing with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, and the experiments sponsored by the U.G.C. in grant-aided self-financed student housing. This will provide, in the, current group of 11 experiments, nearly 4,000 additional places.
A measure which is widely canvassed is that of students attending their local university, but even if 20,000 more students were educated at their home universities we estimate that the saving would be no more than £1 million. This is such a strikingly small figure that one needs to look at it again as a source of real savings. If one takes the local university idea too far, the possibility of rationalising departments, in which we believe much greater economies may be made, becomes virtually impossible if one is to offer students a wide range of courses.
Perhaps the most encouraging possibility of reduction of cost without reducing quality of education lies in a change in the structure of the academic year. This is being discussed by the vice-chancellors and there are indications that a change of structure with no decline in the staff to student ratio could mean an increase of as much as one-third in student numbers without increases in expenditure. I hope that the Vice-Chancellors' Committee will look at this possibility, because in it may lie part of the answer to the problem which the


right hon. Gentleman has raised and with which I am concerned.
I conclude by answering the right hon. Gentleman's two final points. The first was the question of when the decisions on the next quinquennium will be made. It will be during the present Parliament, if I assume that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister does not step in before the normal constitutional period of a Parliament. That is perhaps the only way I can answer the right hon. Gentleman, since I am not the Prime Minister.
It is our desire to bring not only the universities, but also, as soon as they are established, the polytechnics into the closest possible consultation on what the proper figures would be. For this, new machinery is required. I emphasise that we want the academic opinions of polytechnics as well as the administrative views of the F.E. sector for this purpose. There will have to be new types of machinery, but I cannot go further tonight.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the question of the Ph.D. We must bear in mind the balance between an attempt to move both universities and schools away from specialisation and the pressure that often leads to demands for a four-year course in consequence. Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that we could jump straight to a two-year course if we are already trying to remove specialisation at an earlier stage? This is worth discussion.
The right hon. Gentleman also touched on student revolt at the universities. The colleges of technology are being increasingly appreciated as institutions making an immense contribution to the staffing and onward movement of industry. The universities sometimes feel that they are under attack because they often cannot show quite so directly that they are producing people who will immediately move into employment of a kind that everyone immediately recognises as useful. But this is a very short-sighted view of the education system. As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, students who are restless at present must appreciate the need to understand the world they want to change, and because that world becomes more complex, and includes such subjects as the growingly difficult field of science and the great revolution in the

computer world, students need to understand more than their fathers did if they are to control what they wish to control.
This brings me to my final point. I know that the universities sometimes feel that they are being told to become more and more relevant at a time when they feel that their response to society's needs is already very substantial, and that the pressures for change are almost as great as can be tolerated by institutions which have grown up over such a long period. Their voices are often critical, usually constructive, often creative. I would certainly wish to say in my rôle as a Minister of State, Department of Education and Science, that anybody who lightly wishes to attack the universities or undermine their academic freedom should ask himself whether he is also undermining one of the most important bastions of a liberal society.

Mr. Speaker: As we begin the new debate, may I say a word or two. I have been appealing through the night for brief speeches. So far, most hon. Members have responded, and I have been able to call 60 hon. Members. There are still 30 debates ahead of us.

Orders of the Day — GIPSIES

5.19 a.m.

Mr. Eric Lubbock: I shall try to be as brief as possible, but this is an important and complex subject which cannot be dealt with in five minutes.
As the Parliamentary Secretary knows from the debates we have had over the past two years, in what I have to say this morning I may appear to be critical of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, because that is the way the rules of the game operate. However, I want to make it clear from the start that I very much value the work that has been done by the hon. Gentleman, the Minister of Housing and Local Govment and the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, in trying to tackle the very difficult problem of gipsies and other travellers, as well as the contribution made in more recent months by Lord Hughes, at the Scottish Office. I thank them for their endeavours. I believe that the real culprit is the Treasury and I wish that Treasury Ministers were present to answer the debate. However, this is the way


the rules of the game operate and I must address my remarks to the Parliamentary Secretary, who I am delighted to see here.
I do not want to say anything about the Scottish situation in detail, because the hon. Gentleman is not responsible for it, but I refer him to the debate which took place on the Housing (Scotland) Bill on 30th June, when hon. Members on both sides said that there was a problem in Scotland, that it should be dealt with and that the survey recently conducted by the Scottish Development Department demonstrated that there was a much larger problem in Scotland than people have believed. In the conclusions of the report it is stated that no single solution will be appropriate in the Scottish context. It adds:
The Secretary of State's view is that as much as possible should be done by local authorities in the way of temporary action before next winter to alleviate the immediate prolems which clearer guidance on the variety of long-term solutions will be available when the current study is completed.
There are differences between the problem in Scotland and that in England and Wales. One obvious difference is that 30 per cent. of the travellers in Scotland are still living in tents and, therefore, their situation is rather analogous to the one Hampshire faced some time ago and which demanded perhaps a different kind of solution than found favour for the rest of England and Wales. I say no more than that, but I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland will follow up the exhortations he addressed to the local authorities to do something in the immediate future to cater for the gipsies in the forthcoming winter.
It is almost exactly a year since the Caravan Sites Act, 1968, received the Royal Assent. Five months earlier, when it was going through the House, the hon. Gentleman described it as
… a notable step forward for two groups of people who, through no fault of their own, have suffered many trials and a good deal of harrassment. We shall do all we can to speed it on its way to the Statute Book. With the good will which has been shown by every hon. Member today, we can hope for a happy and quick passage for this very desirable Measure.
In spite of this admirable sentiment, expressed officially on behalf of the Government, one of the groups who were to benefit from the Measure are still wait-

ing, because the whole of Part II, which deals mainly with the provision of caravan sites for gipsies, only comes into operation when the Minister of Housing and Local Government makes an Order to that effect.
Over the whole of this 12 month period, the Minister has refused to bring Part II into operation in spite of continous pressure from hon. Members, the Gipsy Council, the National Council for Civil Liberties, various Church organisations, the National Council of Women and many private citizens. The excuse given for not doing something which was said to be so desirable has been the need to limit public spending while the country is going through severe economic difficulties, and, to be fair to the hon. Gentleman, in the same speech from which I have quoted he gave a hint of this when he said, referring to local authorities:
Since we are exhorting them not to increase their numbers of staff and to make the best use of existing staff, it may be that we cannot immediately implement this part of the Bill."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st March, 1968; Vol. 759, c. 1981–2.]
No one listening to that speech would have guessed that, a year later, nothing would have been done to bring it into operation.
Is the economic situation so desperate that the Government have to penalise a section of the community which, of all people, is least able to stick up for itself? During the last few months, it has been announced that higher civil servants and the heads of nationalised industries are to receive substantial increases in pay which are, no doubt, fully justified on the criteria laid down in the Government's prices and incomes policy. But if we can afford to pay those increases to those higher civil servants, increases which will cost the taxpayers £1,600,000, how is it that we cannot allow local authorities to spend about one-twentieth of that sum on eliminating what is admitted by the Government to be an acute human problem affecting, as it does, not only the gipsies themselves, but many householders who have to suffer the annoyance and disturbance which are invariably caused by unauthorised encampments?
Nor can the Government claim consistency in this matter. In the Session 1967–68, 13 Acts were passed by which new duties were placed on local authorities, including the Caravan Sites Act. All


the other 12 are in operation and this is the only one which has not been put into effect. The Parliamentary Secretary was not able to give me the overall cost of these Measures, because, as he explained very kindly in a letter to me, it would have been necessary to circularise local authorities and put them to a great deal of work to provide this information.
But he has been able to give me the figure for the Civic Amenities Act, which is officially estimated to cost £100,000 annually. I am wholly in sympathy with the objects of that Act, particularly those provisions which deal with abandoned vehicles and other refuse from which my constituency suffers. But if the Caravan Sites Act were in operation, there would be far less work for local authorities to do in clearing up the astonishing quantities of rubbish which accumulate in unofficial gipsy camps.
I come now to the argument about the cost of implementing Part II. I begin with a quotation from the right hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) who, when we were discussing the rate support grant, said that I must
take into account the fact that the setting up of permanent caravan sites will mean capital expenditure which in the present situation we could not enter into …".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th December, 1969; Vol. 775, c. 144.]
At the same time, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, perhaps rightly, is encouraging local authorities to set up official sites on a voluntary basis. In the Ministry's Circular 49/68 of 23rd August, last year, it was stated that an urgent need existed an dthat loan sanction applications, whether for temporary or permanent sites, should be considered sympathetically.
In another place, in a debate initiated by Lord Willis, Lord Kennet put it even more succinctly when he said:
The Government's policy in this is perfectly clear. It is to say to the local authorities … We will give you loan sanction if your proposal is anything like a proper one. For heaven's sake! get ahead and do it."—[OFFICTAL REPORT, House of Lords; 13th Feb, 1969; Vol. 299, c. 680.]
Why not be logical and make the obligation to provide better sites mandatory, as Lord Kennet implied should be done?
What would be the cost if the Minister agreed to my proposal? In answer to

a Question which I asked on 20th December, the Minister of Planning and Land said that the provision of a single pitch with individual toilet facilities would cost £1,300, including a figure of £300 for the land. Some sites have communal toilets, but let us take this as the maximum figure which is unlikely to be exceeded, because of the differences in standards between one local authority and another. The total loan charges would run to £125 per pitch, that is, for a pitch with individual toilets. Assuming that the rent that could be charged for a site with such a high standard of facilities would be £2 a week, after deducting the rent from the loan charges the cost to the local authority would be a mere £21.
On 13th July, in another Answer, the Minister for Planning and Land said that 396 pitches had been provided on official sites as at 30th June, and that this represented about 10 per cent, of the total required to accommodate all the gipsy families in England and Wales. Therefore, we can work out what the total number of pitches should be. We can multiply this by £21 and arrive at the total cost. The figure of £21 times 3,600—the number of additional sites which should be provided—comes to £75,000 a year.
I emphasise that the burden would not fall on local authorities immediately, even if the Minister made the necessary Order tomorrow. Months if not years in some cases, would have to elapse while suitable land is identified, objections to the proposals of the county council are heard, the local authority then obtains loan sanction, the construction of the site is put out to tender, and there is, finally, the time of the actual construction work. Not all this expenditure would fall on the local authority, because about 50 per cent. of it would be repayable in the form of rate support grant.
Let me next consider what expenses are being incurred by local authorities as a direct result of the Government's failure to implement the Act. I have been trying to find out, as the Parliamentary Secretary knows, how much is being spent on the removal of gipsies from unauthorised sites, on the clearing of land which has been occupied by gipsies in the past, on the construction of barriers to prevent gipsies from occupying land, and on connected purposes such as the legal cost of enforcement proceedings and


the salaries of persons employed in dealing with the gipsy problem.
This has not been an easy task, because most local authorities do not identify their costs in this form. For instance, one of the London boroughs which replied to my query said:
Much time is spent by council officers on matters attributable to the occupation of land by gipsies but the cost of this is not readily assessed, as no direct charge is made to any particular function.
A large number of the replies which we had from local authorities have made this kind of proviso to the figures which they have been able to give, where they have been able to give any figures at all.
However, with this in mind, and knowing that the amounts which have been given must fall a good deal short of the real cost, we have ascertained that four county councils are spending £1,650 between them, while eight county and London boroughs are spending £21,660. This makes absolute nonsense of Lord Kennet's calculation in answering the debate intitiated by Lord Willis on 13th February. Let me assume, as he said, that there are 24 county and London boroughs with a gipsy problem and, further, that their average spending is the same as that of the eight for which the figures are available. Then, the total annual cost of these totally unproductive ways of trying to cope with the gipsy problem comes to £74,000, or about £1,000 less than doing the job properly.
For the reasons which I have given, the wasteful spending must amount to much more than £74,000, so a saving would result from adopting the right policy. I think that I have said enough to dispose of the bogus financial arguments used by the Treasury. I know that it must be the Treasury, I hope that I am not embarrassing the Parliamentary Secretary when I say that, because I know how sympathetic he is to this matter.
Having disposed of those arguments, I turn now to only one aspect of the serious human problems which we are creating by our failure to act. I think that this is by far the most important in the long-term—that is, the educational aspects of the problem. Lord Kennet himself said:
… of course, the most urgent and deplorable part of their present situation is not getting the children to school."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords; 13th February, 1969; Vol. 299, c. 679.]

He gave an estimate of 4,000 gipsy children who are being denied the chance of education.
Here, I refer briefly to the study which was carried out by Mrs. Adams at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, and Mr. Smith, of the Leicester College of Education, which was published as Appendix 12 to the Plowden Report. The authors of the study concluded that a majority of gipsy parents want their children to attend school. I can certainly confirm this from the discussions I have had with gipsies in my constituency and with officials of the Gipsy Council. The authors went on to say this:
Since the majority of families still travel, staying either from choice or necessity for relatively short periods in each place, normal education is not feasible. Our evidence suggests that less than 10 per cent. Of the children of school age are attending school; the great majority are growing up illiterate.
One can see, therefore, that it is no exaggeration to say, as the Plowden Report does, that gipsy children's educational needs are both extreme and largely unmet. They cannot even be met effectively, the report states, by measures of the kind that are recommended for the more general problems of urban deprivation. The report says:
They will require special attention and carefully planned action.
Yet the Secretary of State for Education and Science has sponsored no further research on this problem since the Plowden Report was published, as he told me in reply to a Question on 12th June. Although there is a programme of aid for deprived urban areas costing £20 million to £25 million, not one penny has gone to the most deprived people in the whole country. Indeed, the Home Office announced in a statement on 30th June tint an additional £4½ million worth of approvals for the urban aid programme is forthcoming and it said that many of the schemes which are now proposed under this additional £4½ million grant are for the education, health and care of children.
When the original programme was announced in the House on 22nd July the Home Secretary said:
The purpose of this programme is to supplement the Government's other social and legislative measures to ensure as far as we can that all our citizens have an equal opportunity in life."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 22nd July, 1968; Vol. 768, c. 41.]


If the Home Secretary will refresh his memory by re-reading Appendix 12 of the Plowden Report, from which I have quoted, I am sure that he will be forced to agree with me that the scales are weighted even more heavily against gipsy children than they are against the children of immigrants. So why cannot he ensure, in consultation with his colleagues, that some fraction of this money available is spent where it is most needed?
I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to a suggestion which has been made by a friend of mine who is a teacher which might be tried out on a very modest budget as an experiment. My friend writes:
I think it might be possible to find ten or a dozen volunteer qualified teachers who would be willing to travel once a week within a 50-mile radius of London. It would probably be necessary to find some source of funds to at least pay for their petrol—particularly if the groups they were visiting were mobile. This would, however, cost only some £70 per teacher per annum and would enable a measure of help to reach a very much larger number of children than could be reached by appointing full-time teachers to such work. The teachers would have to be attached to the particular gipsy groups, since with such a loose organisation it would not be possible to co-ordinate methods in such a way as to allow of groups of children being handed on from one teacher to another at frequent intervals.
I think that my friend has the germ of an extremely good idea. I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would investigate the possibility of getting some of the additional £4½ million which has been announced by the Home Secretary allocated to this purpose. Ultimately, the educational deprivation of gipsy children and the consequent impossibility of fitting adults into the framework of society because of the limited job opportunities that result from their illiteracy and from the difference between their mores and those of the settled population will be eliminated only if we stop hounding them from place to place and if local authorities would stop shovelling the problems over their borders as they have done in the past.
I know that there are signs of hope, as, for example, in Leeds and in the West Midlands, where some of the recent debates in this House may have assisted to secure a more favourable attitude. It is, however, quite wrong that the few progressive local authorities, plus one or two

which have become involved, paradoxically, as a result of trying to escape from their responsibilities, should have to shoulder the whole burden.
All the circulars and all the Ministerial exhortations over the years have practically not scratched the surface of the problem. I calculate that if we go on providing accommodation for gipsies at the same pace as during the last year, it will be 58 years before there is even sufficient accommodation for the existing gipsy population, making no allowances for growth. As the Lord Willis has said, this is a national scandal. It is a disgrace to a civilised nation which cannot be tolerated a moment longer. I beg the Minister not to accept the inhuman and un-Christian veto of the Treasury but to act now, before another winter brings further misery to these forgotten people.
In the debate on Second Reading of the Caravan Sites Bill last year, I paid tribute to the late Norman Dodds, our friend and colleague, who fought a lonely battle on behalf of the gipsies over the last 15 years of his life. I do so again today, because he did more than anyone to awaken the conscience of this House and to point the way to a solution.
Norman Dodds wrote a book about the travelling people just before his untimely death in 1965, and on the last page he said these words, which are still as true today as they were four years ago:
Once a national policy has been conceived and implemented, and a positive directive issued, then, and then only, will the local authorities shoulder their manifest responsibility in this matter. This is what we must press for, and press for with all our might.

5.42 a.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Arthur Skeffington): I should like to begin by thanking the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) for his kindly references both to myself and to my joint colleague, Lord Kennet, and, indeed, to the Scottish Minister, Lord Hughes. The hon. Member might well have been more angry with us because Part II of his Act has not been implemented. On the other hand, I am sure that he knows that the Department and the Government are in complete sympathy with what he wishes to achieve, and we shall do all we can, within the


economic framework within which we have to operate, to reach that objective.
The hon. Gentleman concluded by referring to one who was known to all of us present in the Chamber, and certainly to the present occupant of the Chair—our late colleague Norman Dodds. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman did so because sometimes one wonders, when one is pressing on, sometimes almost alone, concerned with a problem, whether it will ever have any practical effect. But the work done by Norman Dodds and the trail he blazed has helped enormously with the gipsy community, particularly because the hon. Member for Orpington has carried on the noble work which our late colleague Norman Dodds began.
The hon. Gentleman always speaks with great compassion on this subject and backs it up with detailed knowledge. The gipsy community, this House and, indeed, all those who want to see this problem solved are very much in his debt. I would like to couple his name with that of Norman Dodds in this matter.
I should like to begin by saying two things. First of all, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, we are as unhappy as he is about the continuing situation of the gipsies and especially the problem that large numbers of gipsy children are not getting an adequate education. I think that this is probably the greatest tragedy of all. We know a solution of the problem is practicable. It is possible to solve this problem, we believe and he believes, by the implementation of Part II of what is rightly called the Lubbock Act, although we all like to think we have a share in its parentage. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no complacency on our part and no desire to diminish any of the criticisms or any of the hon. Gentleman's descriptions of the situation.
We are unhappy about the present position, and that is another reason why we are grateful for his continuing interest, because the country, the local authorities, and the Government—no one—must ever be allowed for a moment to forget that this situation continues to exist and demands a solution, which we are determined to apply as soon as we possibly can. I start by saying that be-

cause I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows the great personal concern of my joint colleague, Lord Kennet, who is charged, under my right hon. Friend, with looking at the policy generally in relation to gipsies.
The second thing I would say, and I put it on the record now, and probably will again before I finish, is that nothing would give my right hon. Friend greater pleasure than that I should announce tonight or on 1st August or 1st December, whatever the date may be, that Part II is to be implemented. In passing may I say that, as is probably known to the House, my right hon. Friend has been a little under the weather and has been out of the office, but he is making very good progress. I thought the House would like to know that. Nothing would give him greater pleasure than that I could announce the implementation of Part II, but all I can say to the hon. Gentleman, though I know it will not be of immediate comfort either to him or to the gipsies, is that I give him the absolute assurance that as soon as economic circumstances permit Part II will be implemented. We stand by that, and the hon. Gentleman's interest and our concern as a Department are, I think, guarantees that this matter will never be overlooked, and, at the very moment we can do so, we will implement Part II.
Some progress has been made towards the solution. It is, roughly, a year, as the hon. Gentleman says, since the Bill reached the Statute Book. As he knows, in the period from June, 1968, to June, 1969, a further 62 pitches have been provided at a cost of some £30,000. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that this rate is not nearly fast enough by any means, and with his estimate of how long it may take to solve the problem at that rate, but, at least, something has been done. Four London boroughs—two more now—are providing sites. I am glad the hon. Gentleman mentioned Leeds, where, on 15th July, 22 pitches became available. We appreciate what Leeds has done. It is the first county borough to act in this way, and in just such a region where provision ought to be made, and I only hope that this excellent example which Leeds has given will be followed by other county boroughs. So a little has been done; but I would not by any means quarrel with


the hon. Gentleman's estimate of the rate of progress.
Reference was then made to the different nature of the problem in Scotland. I assure the hon. Gentleman that his remarks about the need to make provision there will be drawn to the attention of my colleagues and right hon. Friends who are dealing with the Scottish problem.
A major part of the hon. Gentleman's speech was directed at the question of the education of gipsy children, which is probably, as I said, the greatest tragedy. But, of course, the solution of the problem also depends largely on whether or not gipsies can be found a permanent site. Whatever other scheme is proposed, it is far less satisfactory than having the children in one place where they can go to one school. In the meantime, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has promised to investigate particular cases of difficulty brought to him by the Gipsy Council. I gather that some cases have already been submitted.
I should like to pass on to the Home Office and to the Department of Education and Science the suggestion—I confess that I have not heard it previously—of the possibility of travelling teachers. I believe that some years ago a similar scheme operated for children who lived on barges. Bearing in mind the physical difficulties which were involved, that scheme was quite successful in that for some days in each month the children got some formal instruction. I thank the hon. Gentleman for the suggestion and I hope that he will thank his friend who originally brought it forward. I will see that it is considered.
Mention was made of the possible net costs of implementing Part II. I have no quarrel with the hon. Gentleman's figures, nor any criticisms to make, except that he left out of account the factor of maintenance and supervision. The matter of supervision will need to be faced by authorities which establish sites and is a substantial one. I am sure that a great deal of abortive expenditure involved merely moving gipsies or in fencing off land. I hope the time is not too far off when he can convert that into positive expenditure to solve the problem.
In the meantime through all the means at our disposal we are urging the autho-

rities not to move on gipsies until at least they have provided one site. In the interim period we will look with every favour on applications for loan sanction. I thing there will be further response to that possibility, though I cannot suggest we shall do much better in the year ahead than we did in 1968. I cannot anticipate greater success, but I hope that we shall have some.
Finally, in thanking the hon. Gentleman, I would reiterate that as soon as public expenditure can be permitted to advance because we are meeting our economic targets, we shall be only too delighted to bring in Part II. The Government are determined to keep public expenditure within certain broad totals, and until this aim is achieved there are bound to be things which cannot be done. However, we are discussing a desirable objective and the hon. Gentleman will be aware that it is sometimes possible to achieve an objective faster than one might have thought at one time.
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised this subject. The net additional expenditure may be smaller than we originally thought. Our dialogue on this issue is a continuing one, and that is another reason for welcoming this debate, which has been most constructive. We will consider everything the hon. Gentleman said, and I assure him that nobody will be happier than my right hon. Friend when Part II of the Act is implemented.

Orders of the Day — PUBLIC SERVICE PENSIONS

5.56 a.m.

Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: The problem I am raising tonight is not a political one, for all parties are agreed that a solution to it must be found: it is a technical problem which is taking a great deal too long to solve. I am referring to the protection of pension rights, which is a particular interest of mine. I hope that all hon. Members with an interest in the subject will work together to find an early solution to it. The problem affects millions of workers and we cannot allow indifference over it to continue.
I would like particularly to draw the attention of the House to Statutory Instruments Nos. 710 and 790 both of


which have just come into effect and which both contain one extremely obnoxious feature to which I will refer. Students of this complex subject will agree that the protection of pension rights can be achieved by either preservation or transferability. The former is a poor alternative to the latter. Briefly, under preservation a man may on retirement look back to his first or second employer and find that they have retained a memory of his service right up to the time of his retirement, even if he left them many years before; and when he retires he is able to draw pensions from each according to the records they have retained.
Under transferability, the beneficiary obviously does better because as he moves from one employer to another he is able to ask the trustees of the pension fund of each employer to write a cheque to the next fund and there is, therefore, no break in the build-up of the asset; in other words, there is no break in the continuity of the increase in value of the pension entitlement which he can expect to accumulate by the time he reaches retirement age.
In answer to a Parliamentary Question on 24th February, the Under-Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity gave me two estimates; first, that the cost to employers of giving preservation of pension rights would be between £20 million and £25 million, and, second, that the cost of giving transferability might be as much as a further £100 million. In other words, to the average pension beneficiary in occupational schemes, transferability is worth at least five times as much as preservation.
The Government are not being consistent in their approach to the problem of the protection of pension rights be cause they are only aiming to achieve preservation in the private sector, while in the public sector transferability is established by long-settled practice.
We are none of us, with the honourable exception of the right hon. Lady the Paymaster-General, getting any younger, and it is now 15 years since the publication of the Phillips Committee Report on pensions. Even in that report it was noted that in the public sector transferability of pension rights had been achieved to a great extent. These two Instruments commendably seek to give

transferability; but if one is eating a pudding, it is extremely disagreeable to crack one's teeth on a stone. Likewise, in both these Instruments, in so much that is workmanlike and good, it is regrettable to come upon a highly objectionable feature. In each case it is the degree of discretion left in the hands of pension fund authorities.
This is entirely out of accord with up-to-date concepts of good management practice and the ethics of good pension fund management. Suppose someone had £100 on deposit in his bank and left it there for two years. If he went into the bank to ask the manager to take the money out of deposit and put it in his current account, he would be shocked and aghast if he were told "You have not been near the bank for a couple of years, so we have taken this money and used it for our own purposes. You should have got in touch with us and made sure this did not happen." If that person were to say to the bank manager in those circumstances "You must write to your head office and restore my rights" and if the manager then replied that he would write to his head office, but that it was entirely at its discretion whether it would pay, the depositor would think that the bank's conduct was intolerable and he would tell his friends to have nothing to do with such an institution.
Yet both these Instruments include provisions analogous to this fantastic situation. In No. 710 on the first page, under the heading "Extension of time" it says:
Notwithstanding any provisions of these rules, the authorities may at any time, on the application of a person who desires these rules to apply to him, agree to extend any of the following periods. …
The word I wish to draw attention to is "may". The same feature appears on page 5 of No. 790, where paragraph (3)(2) says:
The Secretary of State in the case of a person entering teaching service and the fund authority in the case of a person entering local government employment may, with the agreement of the other, extend the period to six months or twelve months, whichever is appropriate. …
The word "may" should not appear in either case. The proper word, if the changes are to be drafted in this way at all, would be "shall" in both cases. I recognise that a man who leaves the public sector scheme without knowing


where he will spend the rest of his career may well feel that he is still entitled to his pension rights if after twelve months, two years or five years he re-enters the public service. Such a situation would pose a clerical problem, and for the sake of good administration it should be permissible for these Statutory Instruments to make some provision for recovery of the clerical cost involved in keeping track of such people and of their former employment. This much I recognise. But if there has to be a safeguard, I do not see why the deduction should be more than, say, £25 at most to cover it.
I have withdrawn the two Motions which I set down rejecting these two Instruments, but I ask the Government to make their position clear. I believe that they will agree, as many hon. Members feel who are interested in this problem, that a pension is a form of deferred pay and that a pension, once earned, is inalienably the property of the beneficiary: it may not in any circumstances be forfeited by the trustees or by the fund authority, and it certainly may not be returnable to the employer. If the Government will make that commitment, mistakes of judgment of the kind exemplified in these two instruments will no longer arise.
I am not fastening on these two Instruments because they have appeared in isolation with this feature. They are typical of many which I have seen, of which scores or even hundreds are probably now in operation.
I think that the Government should deal, with the protection of pension rights, first as a matter of valuation, so that we can define in precise terms what the beneficiary's rights are. This has never been done. In occupational schemes, particularly in the private sector, beneficiaries frequently have no concept of the value which has accumulated for them in the pension fund. Indeed, nor has anybody else.
Second, they should treat it as a problem of communication, so that once a valuation has been made, all the parties concerned may understand what the beneficiary's asset amounts to, and why it is what it is.
The Government should seek to take away the quite unacceptable element of

discretion which remains with employers or with the trustees appointed by employers. They should lay down the basis by which pension entitlements can be accurately determined like any other question of sheer arithmetic, which is, indeed, all that we are concerned with when dealing with pensions.
I hope that the right hon. Lady will take this opportunity of making the Government's commitment absolutely clear.

6.8 a.m.

The Paymaster-General (Mrs. Judith Hart): I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will realise that I cannot comment in detail on the Instruments to which he has referred. They are matters for my right hon. Friends the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Secretary of State for Education and Science. What I can do is to talk in general terms about the arrangements for transferring pensions between public sector schemes. As the hon. Gentleman has recognised, they are extensive. They cover a very wide area of employment, including the Civil Service, the National Health Service, Local Government, teaching, the nationalised industries and many other public bodies. Where there are gaps, we do our best to plug them as the need arises.
In general, the basic similarity of pension terms in most public sector schemes makes it possible to provide that a transfer value purchases the same credit in the new employer's scheme as is transferred from the old. In other words, service is transferred on a year-for-year basis. But where pension accrues at different rates, this is not possible, and some alternative method of reckoning has had to be devised. For example, transfers between the Civil Service and the police and fire services are made on the basis that four years' service in the Civil Service reckons as three years in the police and fire services.
In other cases, where the schemes vary too much for the differences to be properly reflected simply by adjusting the basis of reckoning by one formula of general application, it is possible for a transfer value to be paid by the old employer, representing the actuarial value of the man's service with him, and for this to be converted, again on an actuarial basis, to an appropriate credit in


the scheme run by the new employer. In this way the transferring employee may get more or less than year-for-year reckoning depending on the level of benefits provided by the two different schemes. An arrangement of this sort governs transfers between the Civil Service and the British Transport Services.
A degree of discretion is allowed in the rules that govern some of the pension authorities which are involved. For example, there can be a discretion to vary the time within which a transferring employee must enter the new scheme and apply for a transfer value to be paid. But this discretion is not operated restrictively. The rules provide a limited period, normally twelve months, within which the employee must enter the new pension scheme if his pension benefits are to be transferable, and a further period thereafter, normally three months, within which he must ask for the transfer value to be paid. This is entirely reasonable. A pension fund cannot remain liable over an indefinite period, during which a former employee may have passed through several other jobs, to pay a transfer value in respect of a period of service long past if he finally turns up in another employment within the transfer network.
Twelve months is by no means an unreasonably short period, but we recognise that there may be special reasons why he could not complete his transfer within this period. For example, it may have been necessary for him to acquire a new qualification, or he may have been prevented by ill-health from securing immediate entry into his new pension scheme. To deal with situations of this kind the pension authorities are given discretion to extend the time limits. It is important to notice that the discretion operates one way only—the time limits may be extended, but not shortened. It is there to protect the interests of the individual, and it would be a retrograde step to deny pension authorities this measure of flexibility to deal with the hard case.
We all understand the hon. Gentleman's interest in this. I know that he recognises the value of our present transfer arrangements, and that he is anxious to see them extended to include moves

between the public and private sectors. We are not opposed to this in principle, but there is a wide diversity of pension arrangements in the private sector, and an extension of our existing transfer network to include private sector schemes will need very careful consideration. It is essential that transfer arrangements should operate in a way that is fair to the individual concerned, and also fair, from a financial point of view, to both the old and the new schemes.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are at present engaged very fully in a detailed review of the Civil Service pension scheme. We are taking into account the implications of the new State earnings related scheme and the recommendations of the Fulton Committee, which also drew attention to the desirability of transfer arrangements on the widest practicable scale, but it also recognised the real practical difficulties. We shall certainly be considering in the course of that review how far we can improve and extend our existing arrangements, and no doubt other public authorities will be thinking along similar lines as they examine the implications of the State scheme for their own occupational schemes.
We certainly hope that it will be possible to introduce preservation with retrospective effect in the public service, whatever may be the attitude of the private sector, because preservation without retrospection is of very little value, and without it, and without the accelerated maturity of the State scheme which gives a 20-year maturity period, it would mean that preservation would take 40 years before it would be fully effective. Indeed, without retrospection one would be talking about the next generation, or the generation after that, and not about the present one. We intend to talk in the public sector about the present generation in terms of preservation. I hope that the private sector will do the same, but certainly in the public sector that is what we shall base our discussions on. These are highly complex matters, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will understand that as far as the future is concerned I, with the best will in the world, cannot at this moment promise him more than that everything he has taken into account will clearly be relevant in the studies that we are making.

Orders of the Day — MOTORWAYS (ELTHAM)

6.14 a.m.

Mr. William Hamling: The subject which I hope to raise in a short debate is not a party issue but certainly an important political issue for my constituency. It concerns the life of the borough in which I live and part of which I represent. It concerns also the life of London. I regard Eltham in the centre of my constituency as one of the most attractive suburbs in the whole of London. It is noted for open spaces, its sports grounds, its quiet woodlands where foxes roam and there are horse rides. It is famous for being the location of a very ancient palace, Eltham Palace, and Well Hall Pleasance, once the home of Thomas More's daughter. It is also famous as a place where there are recognisable village communities and at the same time modern estates second to none in London. It is an essential part of London's Green Belt which Herbert Morrison fought so hard to preserve. It is one of the lungs of London where people come for rest and quiet, the home of one of England's oldest golf clubs.
Now it is to be savaged and desecrated by building not one motorway but four, some stretches of which will be in four lanes. My constituency is being asked to bear a concentration of motorways in excess of that borne by any borough anywhere in the country. The people of my constituency think this is too much. I wish to spend a few minutes on the history of these motorways. There has been a great deal of secrecy and delay in publishing details of them, and the publication has been piecemeal, unrelated to plans already published, with the result that there has been widespread confusion among the public in my borough as to what is intended.
The first project was announced some years ago for building the Dover radial route from Falcon Wood to Kidbrooke. The second, more recently announced, is the ringway from Falcon Wood to Mottingham. Then there are the motorway from Sidcup to Kidbrooke and from Kidbrooke to Blackwall Tunnel, and, finally, the motorway from Falcon Wood to Thamesmead. In the heart of my constituency there will be a motorway box which will contain 17,000 people, a tight motorway box 1½ miles long and only

three-quarters of a mile wide. No one now knows the full picture.
As a consequence of the plans we already know of, there will be widespread destruction of property and amenity. One of the two factories in my constituency will be destroyed. This is Grafton's precision factory employing 300 workers which exports the bulk of its productions overseas. New houses and new flats will go. Blocks of new flats in Middlepark Avenue, only a few years old, will go. Sports grounds will go, woodlands will go, a golf course will disappear, public parks will be torn in two, and a new children's home only recently opened will be destroyed—and of course, hundreds of homes are going in the path of the motorways.
In addition, there is planning blight on every home within sight and sound of the road works. This planning blight will go on for about 15 years. People who live in this borough and in my constituency will have to face for nearly a generation confusion, noise and nuisance of road works such as no one else has had to face. No one will want to buy a house in this area and no one will be able to sell. Homes created at great cost and sacrifice will have their amenities destroyed, and their value will dissolve in the dust in the wake of the bulldozer. A lovely and peaceful part of England is to be sacrificed on the altar of the new god, the motorcar.
We know the effect of the flyover at Hammersmith. That is only one road, and the civic life of that part of London has been destroyed. One thinks of Eltham with four great gashes of reinforced concrete through it, and one thinks of the effect on the civic life of that part of London.
We say that we ought to cry halt before it is too late. We ask where we are going. Towns are for people to live in; they are not for processions of cars and lorries charging through them. We ask why these roads are being built and where is the case for this sort of construction within London. Authorities seem to think that all they have to do is to present plans and draw lines on maps, and that people must accept. Are we not to be consulted beforehand? Is there not some obligation on the authorities to prove the need and prove that there is no alternative?
People talk about motorways round London. But these are not round London; these are through the heart of London. I spoke earlier of piecemeal planning—first one road and then another, planned in little bits. The people of London are entitled to see this as a whole and to judge it as a whole. Local inquiries are a sham and deceit in this sort of situation because all that is being considered is one little bit of road examined by itself with no relation to what has gone before or what will come after. That is not consulting opinion. Every local inquiry pre-determines the verdict on the next bit. It does not permit any change to the basic policy and basic conception. One day we shall awaken in London and see London submerged in a mountain of highways for which London was never built and which London cannot carry—and the people of London will have had no say in it.
We say, "Stop now." Let us pause and consider this vast programme, which I understand is to cost about £800 million. We call for the setting up of a Parliamentary inquiry into the need for this mass of motorways.
Finally, I turn to the question of compensation. We have been told that fair compensation will be paid and that people will receive the market price. I know of no case so far in which a family has been given a fair market price for any property taken over. One of my constituents, a man of about 60 lived in a fourbedroomed house, one of the best-built houses in Eltham. It was a modern house with every convenience, beautifully built and well cared for. I have studied the prices of houses in my constituency and I have no doubt that to buy that house would cost £10,000. He was never given anything like £10,000 in compensation and he has had to settle for buying a small bungalow. I believe that a man dispossessed in this way is entitled to receive compensation which would provide him with an alternative home of exactly the same sort as that of which he has been dispossessed. That is what I mean by "fair compensation"—the value of a comparable house.
Apart from those houses which will inevitably be destroyed, there is planning blight, which will affect every owner-occupier in this quadrilateral. Will the community recompense every one of

them? That is a question to which my constituents want an answer. I do not believe they will be recompensed. I believe that this is a confidence trick being played on people when planning blight like this will affect thousands of owner-occupiers. They will not be able to sell. Nobody will want to buy a house—certainly at existing market prices—in an area which is to be blighted for motorway construction of this character and immensity. If we try to tell people that they are being given fair compensation, they will not believe us, and they will be right.
hope that my hon. Friend will tell us that he will consult his right hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend, who lives in the heart of my constituency—indeed, he lives only about a quarter of a mile from the site of one of these juggernauts—and favourably consider this very simple request that the people of London are entitled to have an inquiry which will satisfy them as to the need for this programme, the advisability of it and its cost.

6.25 a.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Bob Brown): I was fascinated by the description which my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) gave of his obviously delightful constituency, and having heard such a description I clearly could not fail to be impressed by the concern he feels for it.
For the general strategy of its programme, the G.L.C. has adopted, as its main objective for London roads, the development of a primary road system of mainly urban motorways which would include two complete orbital routes, ringways 1 and 2 and the major part of a third, ringway 3. The aim is to relieve the suburban roads and central London of the long-distance non-local traffic by improving the efficiency of orbital movement between main trunk and other main routes which link London with other parts of the country.
The Council's long term programme will form an integral part of the strategy for London in the Greater London Development Plan which is shortly to be submitted to my right hon. Friend the


Minister of Housing and Local Government. It has already been made clear that the proposals in the plan will be subjected to a full and searching inquiry, but we cannot hold up all road schemes until the final decisions have been taken on the G.L.D.P. because this might take a considerable amount of time. Urgently needed road schemes which might eventually form part of the proposed primary network scheme are going ahead. These schemes stand on their merits and are independent of the G.L.C. proposals as a whole.
I turn to the primary network in the Eltham area. Eltham is an area of London where the primary network, as envisaged in the present proposals, becomes relatively close meshed. This is because the two major radial trunk routes (M2-A2 and A20) converge and intersect with one of the orbital ringways (ringway 2).
To the north of Eltham, the A2-M2 from Kent will have a link into ringway 2 at Falconwood. From Falconwood, the route known as the Dover radial runs westward along the railway line to Kidbrooke where it turns north towards the Blackwall Tunnel and the East cross route of the innermost orbital, ringway 1.
To the south of Eltham, the A20 radial, coming from the south-east through Sidcup, links through a major interchange with ringway 2 immediately to the west of Mottingham station. From this interchange, links are proposed to carry traffic to the west of Eltham up to the Dover radial and East cross routes at Kidbrooke and to the east of Eltham to the A2 at Falconwood, and from there northwards along the proposed ringway 2 to Thamesmead and across the river via the proposed new tunnel to link with the primary system north of the river.
The Dover radial route and the Sidcup road link are examples of urgently needed new major roads that have been proposed by the G.L.C. in advance of the Greater London Development Plan and considered as amendments to the existing Initial Development Plan. These amendments raised in an acute form the conflict between roads and houses, amenity and open space. They were the subject of a lengthy public local inquiry. The Dover radial proposals involve a

new road about 2¼ miles long, designed as a six-lane motorway, from Kidbrooke to Falconwood, to replace a stretch of the A2, Rochester Way, which the G.L.C. considers cannot be improved except at a cost of a quite disproportionate amount of property—mainly houses
New link roads north to Shooters Hill and south to the A20 Sidcup road—the Sidcup road link—are also included. The G.L.C. claims that the new roads are necessary because of the growth of traffic and to provide links between the A2-M2 and A20 radials and the London primary road network generally, particularly the new cross-river routes. Having ruled out the improvement of Rochester Way, the G.L.C. selected its proposed east-west route to avoid the severance of communities by the creation of new barriers, to avoid the cutting through of areas of high amenity, and to avoid long, deep tunnels. Its proposed route follows the existing barrier of the Bexleyheath railway. Any further extension westwards would avoid such areas of high amenity value as the Greenwich Hospital and Maritime Museum, Greenwich Park and Blackheath.
Three possible alignments were examined along the chosen route. The first was a road partly on an embankment alongside the railway and on a viaduct over it. The second was a road alongside the railway on an embankment and in a cutting on the north side of the railway. The third was a road alongside the railway and in a cutting on the south side of the railway. The first and second alternatives were ruled out on the grounds of noise and damage to amenity. The second alternative also had engineering difficulties. The third was considered the best solution, notwithstanding that 185 houses and 15 shops would need to be demolished, compared with 136 houses and 17 shops in the first, and 212 houses and 15 shops in the second.
The proposed link road from Kidbrooke to Shooters Hill would also involve the demolition of residential property—some 80 to 90 houses. The link road from Kidbrooke to the A.20 Sidcup Road would not in itself involve the destruction of many houses, but an interchange proposed at Eltham Green would result in the loss of about 45 houses. The interchange as defined by the G.L.C.


is to be deleted from the Development Plan amendment, but as an interchange will undoubtedly be required in this vicinity a symbol for it will be inserted. The revised interchange, it is hoped, could be planned to avoid the demolition of so many houses.
The substance of the many objections to the two proposals was that the routes were unduly destructive of houses and property. The need for new roads was not seriously contested. The destruction of such a large number of houses—about 320 if the Eltham Green interchange is included, and 277 without it—is not to be contemplated lightly, bearing in mind that an appreciable number of the houses are less than 50 years old and are owner-occupied. Following the inquiry a modification of the proposed interchange at Eltham Green was advertised.
A final decision by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government on these proposed routes, in the light of the public inquiry and the few objections to the subsequent amendment, is expected in the very near future.
Stage 1 of this G.L.C. principal road scheme, running from Shooters Hill Road via Kidbrooke to Falconwood, is programmed for grant issue by my Department in 1970–1971.
If the proposed amendments to the interim development plan are approved, the necessary orders under the Highways Act, 1959, and the compulsory purchase order will be published later this year. There will be the normal opportunities for objections to be made. These orders will also cover the Sidcup road link. Subject to the Minister being satisfied, after public local inquiry if necessary, that the scheme is justified on its merits, work could be expected to start on the Dover radial road some time during 1971. The Sidcup road link is included in the current preparation list of G.L.C. schemes on which preparatory work is going ahead with a view to programming some time during the five to eight year period beginning in 1971–72.
The public were afforded a very full opportunity of stating a case against the G.L.C.'s proposals at a public inquiry held locally in November, 1967. The notice of the Minister of Housing and Local Government's proposal to amend

the development plan in accordance with the G.L.C.'s proposals, subject to one modification, was published in the Press in March this year. The Minister of Housing and Local Government's decision will shortly be issued. The G.L.C. will then have to submit to the Minister of Transport the draft orders under the Highways Act, 1959, together with a compulsory purchase order. Again, there will be the right of objection to these orders, and only after they have been confirmed by the Minister of Transport can construction work begin.
It would have been unreasonable to have deferred consideration of this road until the Greater London Development Plan had been approved since the proposals were submitted two years ago, and this road is considered to be urgently required. The decision does not, however, commit the Government in any way to any other part of the G.L.C.'s road proposals.
I come now to ringway 2. The remaining motorway proposals affecting the Eltham area are all part of the G.L.C.'s recently announced plans for ringway 2 between Falconwood and Norbury, including a 1½ mile long link between ring-way 2 at Mottingham and the Ministry's A20 radial route. The G.L.C. says that it has had the greatest difficulty in deciding on the most suitable route for this road and it has not been able to include the alignment in the maps which form part of the G.L.D.P. to be submitted shortly. It is, however, the intention that this should be covered by a late submission which will be treated as part of the G.L.D.P. and which will, be subject to the same full and searching investigation at the inquiry into the G.L.D.P.
I make it clear that these proposals are not yet before my right hon. Friends. They have been published by the G.L.C. to give public notice of its intentions at the start of the G.L.C.'s formal consultations with the borough councils through whose areas the road will pass. Thereafter, it is the G.L.C.'s intention to submit them to the Minister of Housing and Local Government as part of the G.L.D.P. At that stage, full opportunity will be given to those affected by the proposals to notify objections or representations. It would be wrong to comment now on the alignment. The proposals will be considered in due course along with the


G.L.D.P. as a whole. There is no question of their being considered in isolation.
Compensation is, clearly, one of the most difficult aspects of this matter, particularly as this is a densely populated area and these roads will inevitably be destructive of property. While the G.L.C. claims that every effort has been made to follow the least injurious routes, the routes suggested are likely to give rise to a significant volume of objections.
The compensation aspect, not so much for property which will have to be pulled down for the construction of the roads, for which, in spite of what my hon. Friend said, full market value compensation will be paid, but rather for the property which, while not physically affected, is assailed by noise and so on, what is generally known as injurious affection, now assumes major importance. The G.L.C. is making much of its pressure for powers to enable it to pay market value compensation and to acquire property affected in this way.
This and other questions will be considered by the new urban motorways committee which was announced by my right hon. Friend earlier this month. Its terms of reference are to examine present policies used in fitting major roads into urban areas; to consider what changes may enable urban roads to be better related to their surroundings physically, visually and socially; to examine the consequences of such changes, particularly from the points of view of the limitations of resources, both public and private, and changes in statutory powers and administrative procedures, and any issues of public policy that the changes would raise; to recommend what changes, if any, should be made. I hope I have been able to make clear to my hon. Friend that we are not sitting back on these vital issues.

Orders of the Day — SCHOOL BUILDING PROGRAMME (WHITTON AND TEDDINGTON)

6.42 a.m.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: I am glad to have the opportunity of raising the subject of two secondary schools in my constituency in this debate, because traditionally it is a debate which provides an opportunity for the redress of grievances and my constituents

feel that they have a grievance which requires redress.
There are two excellent secondary schools in Twickenham, one at Whitton and one at Teddington, and both are post-war. Both have modern buildings and a first-class reputation. Analysis of the numbers now going through the primary schools makes it clear that both need considerable enlargement. By 1971 each will need about an additional 300 places, that is, each would have a two-form entry extension in addition to the present four-form entry. To be more precise, each now has about 660 children, a number which should rise to 900 or more by 1971.
As the Minister well knows, it is the duty of the local authority to provide school enlargements, and a design list to achieve this end has been submitted to the Department. I am told that in the normal way approval for extensions following the design list of 1969–70 so that the school enlargements may be reached by 1971 should reach the local authority by the mid-summer of 1969; that is, by now. However, that approval has not yet been received.
Last Thursday I put a Question to the Secretary of State to ask whether he would now approve the secondary school building programme for the borough and he said:
No. I am still waiting for the authority to supply the information which I need for a decision on their proposals."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th July, 1969; Vol. 787, c. 144.]
I was rather surprised at this, because I understood that all the information about figures and projections for the future had been supplied.
Therefore, on Tuesday, I asked the Secretary of State
…what further information he is waiting for …
The Minister of State replied:
We are waiting for the authority to inform us how the secondary projects which it has submitted would be compatible with an intention of introducing a non-selective system of education."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd July, 1969; Vol. 787, c. 350.]
So the right hon. Lady was asking not for any information but for a statement of intent.
In asking for this information, the Secretary of State is, I think, basing himself


on the phrase in Paragraph 5 of Circular 10/66:
The Secretary of State will not approve new secondary projects which would be incompatible with the introduction of a nonselective system of secondary education.
But I claim that these two schools are compatible with a non-selective system. They are comprehensive in a very real sense and in any event would be needed in any comprehensive system.
Paragraph 7 of Circular 10/67 says:
It is now clear that a six or seven form entry school can cater properly for the whole ability range and produce a viable sixth form.
This is just what these schools will be—six form entry schools, already possessing sixth forms.
Therefore, in his refusal of loan sanction for these schools, the Secretary of State does not have a leg to stand on. His argument is fallacious. I do not think that he has the force of law behind him. By what statutory power does the Minister withhold loan consent from these two schools? Surely this is a simple human problem which my constituents want to see solved, namely, the enlargement of two excellent schools.
I hope that this little problem will not be bogged down in some political pedantry in the Minister of State's mind. This is not a large matter. The total cost of the two buildings is £300,000, and all that the Secretary of State is asked for is loan sanction for the local authority to spend that money, as well as approval for the design of the buildings. My constituents think that the buildings are excellent. Each, in its way, is well on the way to becoming a comprehensive school. Each has 600 pupils, a number which they intend to raise to 900, each gets about 200 O levels a year, with A levels as well. Teddington got 18 A levels last year, ranging from art to economics, metal working to engineering drawing, geography to mathematics and physics. Whitton too has won A levels in biology, art and other subjects.
So these schools already have sixth forms, many children already stay on to 17 or 18, and some go to grammar schools at an earlier age. In Twickenham there is a deficiency of secondary school places. It is still an expanding area. The deficiency will increase with houses, flats and in-fillings going on in the next four years and there will be an increase in population Lastly, the

schools in Surrey on the other side of the river are not available to children in places like Teddington because transport across the river is difficult.
In the broader field, in Twickenham we have three well-known and popular grammar schools which cater for about 35 per cent. of secondary intake. The children of my constituents, who are of a professional nature because my constituency has places like the National Physical Laboratory in it, have a high I.Q., which makes grammar schools very popular. We have four excellent secondary schools which are in reality comprehensive. We have no finance now for a new large comprehensive school, but the proposals for expanding these two secondary schools close no options. They provide more places urgently needed, which must be a priority for both the Minister and the local authority.
If the Minister does not give loan consent for these two schools, he is being unfair, restrictive and irresponsible and is not letting the local authority fulfil urgent and pressing local needs. By 1971 the deficiency in Twickenham might be about 1,000 secondary places. The blame for not filling these places lies unequivocally on the Minister unless he gives consent now. I am convinced that the electorate will judge that at the next General Election.

6.51 a.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Miss Alice Bacon): As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Richmond local authority, in whose area his constituency lies, submitted these two secondary school proposals for inclusion in the 1969ߝ70 design list—that is, with a view to building work starting in 1970ߝ71. They are the Whitton Secondary Modern School and the Teddington Secondary Modern School. We wrote on 6th March informing the authority what schoolbuilding we could allow in the design list and went on to say:
In the absence of proposals for secondary reorganisation the Secretary of State has deferred his decision on the secondary projects submitted by the authority as he is unable to assess their compatibility with a non-selective system of education.
So far we have received no answer from the local authority on this point.
The hon. Gentleman has tried to prove that these schools are comprehensive


schools. I cannot judge whether they are or are not, because I am still waiting for the reply of the local authority to our letter of 6th March.
All local authorities were asked in Circular 13/66 issued three years ago to describe how projects submitted for a major building programme would or could fit into a comprehensive pattern of secondary reorganisation. This is a commonsense requirement. As it is the Government's policy to extend comprehensive education to the whole country, it would be irresponsible to let authorities build schools which could not fit into the comprehensive pattern. Richmond is one of only about three or four of the London Boroughs that have not yet had a comprehensive scheme adopted. This means that Richmond and the other two or three authorities will be out of step as the years go by with education in the whole of the rest of the London area. Because of this, we have to know how the buildings will be wisely used.
Local authorities which have not made up their minds to introduce reorganisation may find it difficult, or even impossible, to supply a convincing answer to the question of how their schools would fit into a comprehensive pattern. When the Richmond authority supplies the necessary information, I will consider its proposals for secondary school building for 1970ߝ71 with the greatest possible speed. I do not doubt that, as the hon. Gentleman has said, the number of pupils in the area is increasing.
The Richmond plan for secondary reorganisation had to be rejected in December, 1966, because it provided for the retention of selective schools and the allocation of pupils to schools of different types at the age of 11. The local authority's officers were received by the Department the following February to discuss possibilities of progress but two months later they informed us that they did not wish to amend their rejected proposals. It is important that the local authority should have an acceptable framework for future development of its secondary education on comprehensive lines in planning new secondary building.
I know that there is considerable unrest in the borough among parents about

the operation of the 11-plus selection system in Richmond and that a strong parents association has been formed to express their dissatisfaction. Indeed, my right hon. Friend and I have received a number of deputations from that association and other bodies in the area pressing for the adoption of a comprehensive system. I know, too, that many teachers in the borough would like to progress towards a comprehensive system of education.
I hope that the local authority will bear this in mind and will be prepared to reconsider its attitude and submit an acceptable plan at an early date when the working party which it set up in January to review secondary school facilities in the borough, particularly in the Richmond/Barnes district, has reported. In any case, my right hon. Friend has said that the next Education Bill will provide that secondary education is to be non-selective throughout the whole country.
I would gladly arrange a meeting between officers of my Department and the authority with a view to drawing up an acceptable plan. Indeed, the local authority has always known this. On one occasion a meeting was to take place between representatives of the local authority and my right hon. Friend and it was called off.
I have recently been informed that the local authority proposes to spend its allocation for raising the school-leaving age —£107,000—entirely on two schools in the Twickenham area, the Orleans and Teddington schools. I shall have to consider whether those plans are compatible with a comprehensive form of organisation. I told the authority that I would do this when I notified it of its special building allocations for raising the school-leaving age and asked it to supply information in the terms set out in Circular 13/66.
I want to be able to allow the Richmond authority to build the schools they want, but the ball is in their court. They have been asked for information, which has not yet come to me. I hope, however, that common sense will prevail, as well as the wishes of many parents and teachers. I hope that the local authority will respond to the letter of 6th March and to my offer of a meeting, which is still open.

Orders of the Day — THE PRESS

7.0 a.m.

Mr. Albert Murray: I do not think I can be considered by the House as a critic of the Government, but I feel that some criticism can be levelled at them on the matter of the Press. This debate comes very relevantly at this time when we have just heard, this last week, that the Sun newspaper is to be closed on 1st January. The Sun is one of a long line of newspapers, daily, Sunday and national, which have suffered this fate since the end of the war. They include 40 dailies and Sundays all over the country, and they include national ones like the Sunday Dispatch, the Empire News, the Sunday Graphic, the Sunday Citizen, the News Chronicle, the Star. Those were all national papers. Almost 100 local newspapers have gone since 1948, and in addition many magazines of such quality as Picture Post, John Bull and the Leader have gone to the wall since 1948.
I am not concerned about the Sun in a political sense, although it has been a very good friend of the Labour Party under its previous banner of the Daily Herald. Under that banner it was the first newspaper in this country to reach sales of 2 million. I would be just as concerned if this fate happened to a newspaper which held political views different from mine and those of my party, because I think it is essential to have as many newspapers as possible to put forward as many different views as possible so that people can be helped to make right judgments. It has been proved, even though the Labour Party has not had many friends in the newspaper world, that in General Elections people have been able to judge issues uninfluenced in many ways by newspapers. So it is not in a narrow political sense that I am appealing to the Government to give some thought to the problems of the Press.
We in Britain are the world's leaders in terms of newspaper reading. According to the last U.N.E.S.C.O. survey, 50 per cent. of our people buy some newspaper or other, and in this respect we are in front of Sweden, which comes next, and way in front of the United States. So at this time we have a people who are devoted to newspapers. Only by giving consideration to possible Gov-

ernment action can we ensure that that characteristic of ours will last.
The story, incidentally, is not one all of gloom. It has not been a story just of newspaper closures all the time. In certain areas there are still local newspapers springing up, though many of them are the products of large newspaper combines. We have in Kent the new Evening Post, the Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham Evening Post, which is one of the Kent Messenger group. It has been going a year and has already achieved a circulation of 22,000 per day. So the story is not all sad; there are little shafts of sunlight coming through in the newspaper world.
However, one of the problems since the end of the war has been the growing newspaper monopoly. Lord Thomson is the only person I know who when he says he is going out to buy a newspaper really means it, and since his advent on the newspaper scene he has purchased more and more newspapers, both national and local. We talk about having a free Press, but one of the problems is that that is in some sense mythical, because the Thomson empire, for instance, has more than 140 newspapers. How much freedom is there on a national newspaper like the Daily Mail —how much freedom for the editor? It has had eight editors since the end of the war. I am not certain that they left for any other reason than that they had not enough freedom always to say what they wanted to say.
The Daily Mirror talks in terms of "Publish and be damned". But it is a question of who is to publish and who is to be damned. When negotiations have been going on for the purchase of a newspaper the printing workers and those employed on the newspaper, the editors, journalists, and so on, have been part of an auction lot. Over their heads have been bids and counter bids, shareholders' meetings and all the rest, over what is fundamentally their livelihood. They have no say in the auction that is taking place.
The Government should be more concerned than they have been up to the present time to look at some of the newspaper empires. The International Publishing Corporation, whose newspaper sales are the largest of any group in the world, owns all the big-selling weeklies as well as a major portion of trade and


technical weeklies and entertainment journals.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): I am in a little difficulty in deciding to what extent Ministerial responsibility is involved in the hon. Gentleman's remarks. Perhaps either the hon. Gentleman or the Minister can help me.

Mr. Murray: I was hoping to build up a picture of the newspaper industry and then point to where the Minister could intervene and where the Government have some responsibility. I appreciate it is a little difficult for you to keep me in order, Mr. Irving, but if I can build up the jigsaw I hope that the Government will be able to insert the final pieces.
The International Publishing Corporation not only has a large printing empire in this country, but has printing interests all over the world. It has individual publications in this country and owns newspapers like the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, the People, Women's Mirror, and a large number of trade and general periodicals such as Melody Maker, Colliery Engineering, Hairdressers' Journal, Amateur Gardening and a great host of others. The Thomson organisation is another large group which owns a wide range of newspapers all over the country; it has a large number of interests in Scotland and extensive Commonwealth interests.
Governments in the past have been responsible for setting up Royal Commissions on the Press. The last Royal Commission did not say very much at all. The Government certainly took no real action on it. What seemed to come out of it was that the trade unions were to be blamed for all the newspaper problems. What perhaps people have failed to realise is the work done by the trade union movement in the printing industry at all levels to encourage mergers between trade unions and co-operation between trade unions and management in respect of the Daily Mirror and The Guardian.
The Government should consider calling a conference of newspaper interests in the country. This is a matter in which we are all involved since we all want to see a wide-ranging free Press. The conference should be composed of newspaper proprietors, the trade unions,

the editorial staffs, the journalists, television interests and the Government. They ought to examine the whole future of the newspaper industry. What could come out of such a conference are ideas as to how we can help to encourage a wider Press ownership.
Various organisations, including unions, and people such as Nicholas Kaldor have made some good suggestions for helping certain sections of the Press. One idea is the establishment of a public printing corporation, the facilities of which could be used for starting newspapers in areas which are not served by existing newspapers and by other interests wishing to establish newspapers.
It has been suggested that a levy could be introduced based on the amount of newsprint used, with the money going to help poorer sections of the industry. In other words, the larger, more prosperous newspapers could help their less wealthy counterparts. It may be suggested that such a public corporation would represent State interference, but would that be so? The Labour Government of 1945–51 nationalised the railways, but trains serve the whole country, not merely Labour constituencies. The electricity boards do not serve only known Labour voters. These organisations use public money and there is no reason why a public printing plant should have a bias.
Government advertising could help the less well-off sections of the Press. Considering that the Government advertise in the local and national Press and on television, I tabled a Question on 29th April, 1968, asking why no Government advertising had been displayed in the Morning Star in view of the need to give the maximum publicity to decimal coinage. I chose that newspaper because it had not received any Government advertising revenue and not because 1 am a lover of the paper, which has a circulation of 55,000. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury replied that normal practice was followed in placing Press advertising to secure the maximum value for money and that a large number of newspapers were inevitably excluded.
Government advertising is placed through agencies and I am not sure that that is the best way of doing it. There is no reason why readers of the Morning Star, who may not buy any other newspaper, should not be informed about, for


example, new charges and increases, decimal coinage and social security benefits.
The Government should consider their advertising policy. It is obviously done on the basis of how many readers a newspaper has in the A.B.C. or D groups of the social scale. In 1968 the Sunday Times, with a circulation of 1· million received through an agency Government advertising amounting to £314,000. The People, and the News of the World, with a combined circulation of almost 12 million received less than £300,000. Plainly Government advertising is spread in an anomalous fashion. The idea is to see that as much information is given to as many people as possible.
Since 1954 we have had commercial television and the Government have taken advantage of this. On 6th March, 1969, I asked for the amounts spent by the Government on advertising on BBC 1, BBC 2 and ITV in 1969. The answer was that there had been no advertising on BBC 1 or BBC 2 and that the cost of advertising time bought on ITV was £976,335. This is a lot of money, and an argument could be made for using it against competitors of a public corporation. The Government have to think seriously about their advertising operations. Is money being spent wisely?
Mr. Hugh Cudlipp, Chairman of I.P.C., gave the Granada Lecture at the Guildhall on 31st October, 1967. The subject of his lecture was "The mass communication jungle". In that lecture he said:
I see no prudent alternative to the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest of the particular species.
He is entitled to say that because in that jungle the Government are providing him with a large number of coconuts. Government advertising in the Daily Mirror amounted to £488,888 last year—the largest sum of Government money devoted to one newspaper. It is all right for Mr. Hugh Cudlipp to talk of living in the jungle when he is doing as well as that. Talking of newspapers and what the Government should or should not do —mainly what they should not do—he said:
Another idea frequently aired is a Government subsidy on newsprint; yet another notion"—

and this, I think, is one of the most sinister of all:
is that official Government advertising should be channelled to the weaker publications.
That is an interesting thought. He can afford to say these things. It is easy for him to talk about the law of the jungle and say that the Government ought to channel advertising into the weaker publications because he is head of a newspaper and printing empire getting almost £500,000 a year in Government advertising.
I have presented a case which I suggest that the Government should consider in terms of what they can do about the Press in this country. Much as hon. Members on both sides of the House may disagree with the Press on occasions, we need to keep it as wide as possible. It cannot be better summed up than in a speech made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 3rd January, 1967, when presenting the awards made by the Granada television programme "What the Papers Say". He said:
I start from the doctrine that in a free and democratic country such as ours, the British need, and are entitled to demand, a free Press representing every point of view, however poisonous any one of us might feel certain of those views—or the expression of them may be.
With the news last week about the closure of the Sun, my right hon. Friend's statement is more relevant than ever. I hope that my hon. Friend will take note of that and that we may get some action from the Government on this serious problem.

7.23 a.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Edmund Dell): My hon. Friend has raised a most interesting and important subject—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman requires the leave of the House to speak a second time.

Mr. Dell: I apologise. I ask the leave of the House to speak again on Second Reading of the Consolidation Fund Bill.
My hon. Friend has raised a most important subject. It is always a matter for concern when a newspaper fails and a substantial readership loses its preferred paper.
One tragedy of the newspaper situation is that in many parts of the world


larger readerships than appear to be necessary seem to be unable, in certain circumstances, to sustain the newspaper which they prefer. The difficulty is that newspapers are no longer an expanding industry. Newsprint and other costs have risen; there is competition from television advertising which has its impact on the mass circulation of papers; and there are evidently significant economies in newspaper production on a scale which place the lower circulation newspapers in a less competitive position.
What can be done about it? What could the Government do about it? First, despite the specific closure to which my hon. Friend referred, there has been no approach to the Government from the industry for assistance.
One can see reasons why the industry should not approach the Government for assistance. There is a need to keep this industry free from Government control. As my hon. Friend said, we must have a free and independent Press, and I thought that one of the weaker points in his argument was when he appeared to compare the newspaper industry with British Railways. British Railways—I hope that my hon. Friend is right—do not carry only Labour supporters, but there is some difference between British Railways and the newspaper industry. The latter is concerned with the carriage, not of persons, but of opinions, particularly political opinions, and it is essential that this industry should be free of Government control.
Many suggestions are made—and my hon. Friend made some this morning—about the way in which the Government can help industry. One group of suggestions amounts to saying that the Government should provide financial assistance, at any rate to the weaker sections of industry. For example, one of the ways in which the Government could provide some financial assistance—whether it would be enough to sustain particular newspapers in need is a different question—would be to direct their advertising other than on commercial grounds. All I say about that is that the Royal Commission on the Press in 1961 and 1962 recommended no change in the procedure for placing Government advertisements.
Second, in placing advertisements the Government are attempting, as no doubt

other advertisers are attempting, to secure a certain public effect. If one diverts advertising revenue from one newspaper to another to assist the latter, this presumably involves, if the commercial judgment of the agents is right, some reduction in the effect, and this would have to be made up by restoring the amount of money taken from the main channels of advertising. In other words, either we would have a lesser effect, or more public expenditure. This would simply be a way of providing Government money to assist weak newspapers, and there does not seem to be, in principle, any more reason why one should do that, if one is going to do it via a redistribution of advertising, than by simply providing the additional money.
Another way in which it has been suggested that this could be done is by a system of levies. These levies perhaps could operate on the commercial advertising obtained by newspapers, and there could be some system of redistribution possibly added to by the Government. Another suggestion is that the Government should set up a type of institution similar to the University Grants Committee which receives Government money but which distributes that money independently in accordance with criteria which it establishes. A final example of the way in which the Government could assist by providing additional financial resources is through the medium of a newsprint subsidy.
All those methods are certainly technically available for the Government to provide additional money. The difficulty is, first, the point about maintaining an independent Press free of Government control. Second, even if that can be got over, for example through the instrumentation of a body like the U.G.C., on what criteria should one operate? Take the example of a weak newspaper with a declining circulation. At what point should this independent body decide that it has to shut off its assistance because there is no longer any real possibility of saving that newspaper? If it does shut it off, it will certainly in appearance be the body that is killing the newspaper, but if it is prepared to take that responsibility according to what criteria will it operate? Would the subsidy go to all newspapers or just to those in need?
My hon. Friend referred to Lord Thomson and said that when he goes out


to buy a newspaper he really means to do just that. Presumably he would not wish the subsidy to go to those newspaper organisations well in the van. Therefore an act of discrimination would be needed. On what principles would that act of discrimination be based? Would it involve subsidising inefficient organisations which could do a great deal more to help themselves? Would it have to be associated with an efficiency audit to ensure that that was not taking place? I thought that on this point the Observer last Sunday, referring to the Sun, had something very relevant to say. It said in an editorial:
The trouble about a subsidy is that if it were given indiscriminately to all papers, it would result in the politically impossible position that the taxpayers would be paying out money to the already wealthy Thomson group in order to keep the ailing 'Sun' going. Whereas if it did discriminate, it would inevitably incur the change of unfair competition. The fact is that newspapers, like the theatre, must attract and hold their patrons.
On all these proposals, which in essence are proposals for providing Government money to assist, at any rate the ailing sections of the Press, I can only repeat what my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea. North (Mr. Jay) said in the debate in this House on 8th February, 1967:
The Government will study these and other proposals. …But … I see the most formidable difficulties …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th February, 1967; Vol. 740, c. 1670.]
I certainly see those formidable difficulties, as formidable today as they were when my right hon. Friend spoke those words.

Mr. Eric Moorman: My hon. Friend talks about the obvious difficulties. I apologise for not hearing his opening remarks, but I understand that he has not yet covered the particular instance with reference to the Sun in which Edward Pickering, Chairman of I.P.C. told me that the loss incurred by the Sun was of the order of £1 million to nearly £3 million a year. Could not this be cured through the direct Government intervention recommended by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Murray)? Either these losses are absurd or monstrous.

Mr. Dell: As you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, pointed out, this debate must be concerned with matters of Ministerial responsibility. My hon. Friend refers to

losses being made by a particular newspaper and suggests that the Government can intervene in some way to prevent those losses perhaps through improving efficiency of management or in some other way. I cannot accept that it is a responsibility of the Government in intervene in the particular circumstances of a particular newspaper which my hon. Friend suggests is being run inefficiently, any more than it is a specific responsibility for the Government to do this generally. The Government can and do encourage in every way they can organisations of every sort in this country to run themselves with greater efficiency, but I can hardly see that my hon. Friend's comment involves ministerial responsibility.
Other ways in which, it has been suggested, the situation of newspapers might be improved involve the newspapers themselves doing more to improve their own levels of efficiency, for example in respect of their production costs. There is much evidence that the cost of the production of particular newspapers—perhaps of all newspapers—could be significantly reduced if there were more efficient use of labour. Whether this would be decisive in regard to the final success or failure of a particular newspaper probably depends on the situation of that newspaper.
I note that all the printing unions have ratified the 1968 productivity agreement made between the N.P.A. and the printing unions and that negotiations are in train at house and chapel level for effecting economies to improve efficiency. I hope that these negotiations go forward and are successful. If they are, obviously it will improve the efficiency and the economic situation of all the newspapers which benefit from the negotiations.
Another proposal which has been made to assist newspapers is that they should increase prices. One of the problems, it is argued, is that the newspapers in this country are too dependent on advertising and that they are sold too far below the cost of production. The difficulty is that unless everyone increases prices there will be a transfer of circulatiol—at any rate for newspapers which are not the Financial Times!—and that it might be in the interests of newspapers with high circulations to keep prices down as far as possible because it would help their competitive situation.
I can make no comment on the problems of the Sun. Discussions are going on and I hope that they are successful. My hon. Friend proposed a conference of newspaper interests in this country, including television interests, to look at the future of the newspaper industry. He hoped that such a conference would provide ideas on how to promote a stronger Press and he suggested that one idea which might come out of such a conference might be the setting up of a public printing corporation.
Many suggestions have been made in the House recently and over a longer period for further inquiries into the situation in the newspaper industry. The difficulty is that there have been many inquiries and it is hard to see which ideas for assisting the newspaper industry there are which have not already been examined and what further information could be obtained from such an inquiry. There has been the Royal Commissions on the Press of 1947–49 and 1961–62, the Economist Intelligence Unit Survey of 1966 and the National Board for Prices and Incomes Report on the Costs and Revenue of National Daily Newspapers of October 1967. I do not think that all these documents, together with the immense amount of public discussion on the subject, including debates in the House, have left many aspects of the problem or many possibilities unrevealed. One trouble with such an inquiry might be that it would have the effect of delaying such action as the newspaper industry can itself take to improve its own efficiency. However, although at the moment the Government see no purpose in such an inquiry, we would not shut the door on the idea of a further inquiry if further evidence accrued that it was necessary and could be productive.
As my hon. Friend said, there are more helpful signs. It is not all a sad story. There has been the recent increase in the circulation of the quality newspapers, the survival of local and provincial newspapers and the creation of new papers. No doubt the survival of these local and provincial newspapers will continue as long as they are not threatened by local commercial radio which would certainly do them some harm. We must continue to watch the situation with concern, but without at this stage active intervention.

Mr. Moonman: Before my hon. Friend sits down, may I ask him what simple phrase he would suggest that we as members of the Labour Party should use to explain to management committees all over the country why the Government role is one of caution and concern? Does he feel that it is sufficient to say that the Government is not sufficiently aware of the feeling because another newspaper is disappearing and—let us be frank—that it happens to be a Labour paper. Caution and his other phrase will not meet that anxiety. We want something a little more positive before we leave this debate.

Mr. Dell: I was sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Moonman) was not here at the beginning of this debate and so was unable to make the excellent contribution he would have made if he had been here then. Unfortunately he was not able to develop his argument and I have not been able to listen to it and reply to it as I otherwise would have. On the matter of how he can explain the Government's lack of caution on the disappearance of newspapers and of a particular one with Labour sympathies. I would say that the best thing in my experience is to explain exactly what the situation is and the difficulties and dangers of Government intervention. This is much better than pretending that there are solutions which he has not had the opportunity of presenting to the House this morning. No solutions have yet emerged. I said that if there were any new information which an inquiry might reveal, or any new ideas an inquiry might examine, we could consider setting up an inquiry. I see no such new ideas or information.

Orders of the Day — COLNE VALLEY AND HUDDERSFIELD (PLANNING STUDY)

7.43 a.m.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: The area I wish to speak about in relation to Ministry responsibility for its problems and prospects is the County Borough of Huddersfield and six urban districts adjacent to and surrounding the county borough. Five of those urban districts form my Parliamentary constituency of Colne Valley.
This area has been much under the official microscope in the last few years.
To mention the main results of some of the microscopic inspections, the most efficient examination has been of its wool textile industry, by the admirable "little Neddy" for the wool textile industry which, as the result of much diplomacy and pains and employment of expert consultants, within the last few weeks has published a visionary, positive and constructive report on the future of the wool textile industry which is broadly optimistic.
It calls for heavy new and carefully selected new investment in buildings and plant in the industry to go with capital projects based on suitable return on expenditure, to be boldly carried out, and suggests that the industry should proceed with its own plans for rationalisation. The report suggests that this industry has a great future. A large number of the 100,000 or so workers in that area are still employed in the industry. Above all, the report makes the point, which needed to be made, that a decline in man-power and woman-power in a great industry is far from indicating a decline of the industry. All too often the hasty conclusion has been drawn from the decline since the war in manpower employed in wool textiles that this means the serious decline of the industry. As should have been obvious long ago, the introduction of automation and more rationalised processes enables the industry to dispense with labour. This may create a social problem, but it indicates virility rather than decline in the industry.
A second and more wide-ranging official examination of the Colne Valley and Huddersfield area has been by the Hunt Committee. The Government's almost instant brush-off of the major proposals of that tremendous niece of research and constructive thinking has brought great disappointment to the area, as to others, and could induce a drop in industrial morale. The report makes proposals for the grey areas, which particularly include proposals for Government encouragement of new industrial building in that area which above all others had the earliest building of Britain's first industrial revolution. The failure of the Government to respond to the facts which the Hunt Report produced about the urgent need for rebuilding for the industries of the future in the oldest industrial areas has been a great disappointment.
Bus the point about the Hunt Report that I particularly want to stress in this short debate is that it was broadly optimistic about the future of the Huddersfield and Colne Valley area and associated areas, and pointed out the many industrial advantages the area still possesses, and what it could do, given fair treatment compared with the development areas. This is particularly important when one recalls that the wool textile industry in the Scottish Borders is already in full receipt of the regional employment premium, all the special investment grants and the training grants available in development areas, none of which is available to the West Riding wool textile industry, in spite of its being one of the oldest mechanised industries in the country, and one most in need of physical re-development.
The third recent official investigation into the area, as into all the areas of England, has been that of the Redcliffe-Maud Commission. I think that it would be out of order to pass any judgment on the commission's proposals now. The point I want to make is that in spite of its having argued very strongly for a minimum population of about 500,000 to sustain what it expects from its new proposed unitary areas of local government, the Redcliffe-Maud Commission was so impressed with the coherence and social strength of the Huddersfield-Colne Valley area that it made an exception in that case, and in that of the Halifax area adjoining, and proposed that the area whose problems I am raising should be one of the new unitary areas, without any additional districts being roped in. It and Halifax are perhaps the two most striking exceptions to the Redcliffe-Maud general rule.
I come now to the most specific of the four recent official examinations of the area or its industries; namely, the inquiry commissioned by the Yorkshire and Humberside Economic Planning Council and Board into the Huddersfield and Colne Valley area, which it published in May this year under the title "An Area Study". It is a work which took over two years to produce, and which is perhaps none the worse for having, in the main, simply underlined the problems and prospects for the area which were already fairly well known. But, in so far as the study has given


official recognition of the existence of these problems and has provided quite a useful statistical background and verification, I hope that the Government will give it careful study and not allow it to gather dust.
This study, too, is fairly optimistic about the future of this old established industrial area—once again, though, provided, and only provided, that certain urgent matters relating to the age of its industrial buildings and housing for industrial workers and of its industrial environment are attended to with some urgency and on a substantial scale.
I do not wish at this hour to go through all the favourable comments which this impartial study made about the Colne Valley and Huddersfield area. It stresses the fact that, apart from the old established advantages, it will shortly find itself almost at the intersection of the M1 London to Leeds motorway and the new M62 Yorkshire to Lancashire motorway, a prodigious feat of engineering now well advanced in construction.
This will put the Colne Valley and Huddersfield area within a couple of hours' motoring distance of most of the main industrial centres and of the Northern ports on both sides of the country, in a most dramatic way. I have evidence that people are already moving into my constituency from the South of England in order to take advantage for selling purposes and other reasons of the ample new communications which are opening up.
But, more important, the study establishes most impressively the enormous value of the established, loyal, trained and, above all, eminently reliable working force in the area of about 100,000 people at work, and perhaps if I were to single out one of the points to illustrate the reliability of this labour force, I would say that, in spite of a climate and also history of air pollution, now at last slowly abating, which is inclined to reduce the standard of health in the area compared with the average in the country, the figures for attendance at work and the low figures for sickness benefit indicate a record of attendance at work unsurpassed in any other part of the. country. Anyone who has worked in the area for any length of time will also vouch for that.
Here is a tradition of hard work, giving a fair day's work not always in the past for a fair day's pay. There is still an element of low earnings in the district, but it has a history of reliability which it would be most unfortunate to break up or do anything seriously to diminish.
There are always disadvantages in any area, especially where older industries are established, and the point I want to stress and urge upon the hon. Gentleman with all the force I can is the problem of building, under three heads. The first and most important is housing, both the replacement of a very old and in many cases dismal stock of housing for wage earners especially and the provision of attractive new housing to bring new people, especially trained people with a knowledge of new industry, into the area.
7.55 a.m.
Second, there is industrial building, which I have already mentioned. There is, first, the fact that many of the industrial buildings in the Huddersfield and Colne Valley area date from the first Industrial Revolution and, with their five or six storeys, the top two or three of which are rarely used these days, are often out of date for modern processes and urgently need to be replaced. Second, there is the need for building appropriately for some of the new industries which we want gradually to be introduced into the area.
Third, there is the sort of public building which goes to make up an important part of the total environment. All the social studies of the area, especially that by the regional planning council, have stressed the old-fashioned nature of the environment, especially some of the public buildings, and the urgency of getting these modernised and made much more attractive, including the clearance of ugly and semi-derelict sites.
On none of these things are the Government at the moment proposing any special help for this area, and in one respect they are threatening—fortunately, the threat has not hardened into fact and I hope to avert it—to put a great handicap in the way, and that handicap is the green belt proposal.
This is an area which is richly blessed with fine natural scenery. The Pennine


Way goes straight through my constituency, and the Peak District National Park occupies a very large part of the acreage which I represent. My constituents and the people of Huddersfield are also fortunate in that for a day's outing now they can have access to the following national parks: the North Yorkshire Moors, the Yorkshire Dales, the Peak District, the Lake District and, by fairly strenuous travel, Snowdonia. This is a range of national parks which few other people have within a day's travel.
Yet, in spite of all these natural facilities and natural amenities, the authorities are threatening to put into effect a green belt that for all building purposes will sterilise no less than seven-eights of the land in the Colne Valley urban district and proportions of the other urban districts which I represent almost as large. The figures for the Colne Valley urban district, which is the most outstanding and most deplorable case, are these: the area of the district is 16,052 acres and the area proposed under the green belt proposals, which are now before the Minister and many of which originated from him, is 13,897 acres. Give or take a few acres, that is 14,000 acres out of 16,000 proposed to be sterilised for green belt in an area which has been described in many official reports as an area with great promise for industrial development.
This threatened sterilisation is having current effects. The fact that the proposals have not yet been confirmed—and I hope that they never will be—does not mean that there is now an open door for house builders or new factory builders. On the contrary, they are rightly shown the green belt proposals, and any application by them is judged by the planning authority in the light of the proposals. Proposals for no fewer than 456 new houses in the Colne Valley urban district have been turned down by the county planning authority up to the end of November, 1967, since when Yorkshire builders have been so discouraged about the Colne Valley that few applications are made.
This is entirely in conflict with the regional planning council's study, which recommends the urban districts as areas for new housing and hopes that they will have an important part to play in housing the growing population of the area.
The refusal of planning permissions for new houses has an unfortunate effect on labour intensive industries. Several reputable manufacturers gave evidence to a planning inquiry in the Colne Valley in February, 1968, of their handicap in labour matters because of the impossibility of getting sites right for new houses. One manufacturer, Mr. Firth of Marsden, gave evidence publicly, and said:
… if the proposed Green Belt site could be developed for residential use, I feel confident that we need have no further concern over labour shortages in the future.
An architect commissioned by a large textile firm, John Edward Crowther Holdings of Marsden, Said:
The large company commitments already invested in industrial development, and constantly being modernised, £700,000 having been spent since April 1960, are made ineffective by the present Planning intention of sterilising the majority of land from its natural function of providing living space within the industrial community. Introducing the Green Belt into local industrial areas will stultify modern industrial development by driving the younger generation from the district. Cushion space is essential for the replacement of terrace housing.
The chairman of the Yorkshire Regional Planning Council has shown his own anxiety that the pattern of land use in the Colne Valley should not be settled in advance of the study which is about to be published.
The Minister of Housing has not settled that in advance, for which I am glad. But I must emphasise that, while he is still deliberating—and the deliberations have gone on for many years—the shadow of this vast green belt hangs over any serious development in the district. The Government have shown no sign yet of facing the need for a grant for new industrial building equivalent to that received by the development areas.
When for instance, I visit Merseyside and see the bounding industrial development there, based largely on extra development area Government grants and I see there the very welcome enormous advantages in stock of modern industrial building and plant, I find it a dismal experience to come down the same railway line from Liverpool down the Colne Valley, through Milnsbridge into Huddersfield and see the dismal ancient industrial buildings which the Government are giving no help to replace. In an old-established area where the pattern of


roads, railways, canals and rivers is obviously complex, and where the terrain is hilly and sometimes awkward to develop, there are additional initial costs to be faced. All the surveys I have quoted indicate that by and large these extra costs are well worth facing because of the other industrial advantages of the area. The Government have given no recognition to the additional costs of rebuilding in an area of this character. The problem of which I am speaking is not a parochial one. It extends to the whole of the industrial West Riding, to practically the whole of South-East Lancashire, to some parts of the Potteries, and to other old-established industrial districts. The problems are brought sharply into focus in the area of which I am speaking and whose claims I am urging upon the Minister.
Unless we have within a short time an indication that the Government will move outwards from the new areas which they have chosen for some benefit in accordance with the Hunt Committee's proposals to embrace areas where industrial building is such a problem and a challenge, I assure the Minister that there will be a sharp drop in industrial morale and an unwilling surrender by local employers to the enormous temptations of the development areas, which so far practically all of them have resisted out of loyalty to the area which has supported their businesses for so long.
There are many aspects of this study which I would like to develop and which I hope to develop on future occasions. I hope that the Minister will agree that there are advantages on this occasion in concentrating upon the problems of building for people, for plant, and for public purposes. I hope that we shall hear something from him indicating that the green belt threat is to be greatly modified and that there are prospects of industrial building grants being extended to the area of which I have spoken.

8.7 a.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Economic Affairs (Mr. T. W. Urwin): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Richard Wainwright) for providing me with the opportunity to debate with him the study to which he has drawn attention. I am sure that he will agree that it is of great importance to

those who are concerned with planning the future development of the Huddersfield and Colne Valley area. I am sure, too, that he will wish to join me in congratulating the Yorkshire and Humberside Economic Planning Board and Council on producing such a thorough and carefully thought out piece of work.
As the hon. Gentleman may know, the study is one of a series being undertaken by the board and council. A study of the neighbouring Halifax and Calder Valley area was completed last year. In this and in many other ways the board and council are contributing a great deal to our knowledge of regional problems and similar important work is being done in all the other economic planning regions.
Their activities have vastly expanded the amount of regional information available to us and, in my view, have vindicated the decision which this Government took, soon after assuming office, to establish an effective and uniform system of regional planning machinery throughout the country.
The Huddersfield and Colne Valley study has made it clear that the area faces a number of very serious problems, many of which the hon. Gentleman has highlighted. We recognise this and we certainly do not under-estimate the problems. As the council has pointed out, the population of the area is increasing very slowly and regional earnings are still somewhat low. There are serious environmental problems, especially in housing. No doubt, these contribute to the significant net migration which has been taking place from the area. The area's stock of industrial buildings is certainly old and difficult to improve, and there is a shortage of land suitable for new industrial development.

Mr. Wainwright: This is a key point which crops up again and again in the study. When the hon. Gentleman says that there is a shortage of land suitable for industrial development, is he referring to literal physical suitability, or is he saying, with which I would agree, that there is a shortage of land at present designated officially by the planning authority for industrial development?

Mr. Urwin: I was speaking in general terms but more specifically about a physical shortage of land rather than the


other factors to which the hon. Member has referred.
All these points have been very well documented in the study and largely confirmed by the Hunt Committee. The last thing that I want to do is to create the impression, either here or in the area of the study, that we do not fully recognise the problems and their difficulties. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we did not ignore them when we considered our proposals for regional policy in the light of the Hunt Report.
My hon. Friend the Secretary of State, when presenting the proposals to the House, said that the essence of the exercise on which we were then embarked was, as in the last resort is all economic planning, the assignment of priorities. We deliberated a very long time to determine what we felt the priorities were and ought to be. We have in this situation always to keep in mind, first, the essential national economic need for severe restraint in public expenditure, and, second, within the context of this type of control, the need to minimise the adverse impact which measures to assist in the intermediate areas might have on the development areas, the problems of which, despite improvement, still remain by far the more pressing.
The criteria which we employed to help us make those decisions are, I am sure, well known to the hon. Member. Specifically, they were the nature and level of unemployment in the area under consideration, the net migration of population and the real scope for the promotion of industrial growth. After very careful consideration of all the evidence in the light of these standards, we came to the conclusion that there were areas with much greater need for help than the Colne Valley.
To look quickly at the comparison in unemployment, last month the unemployment rate in the Northern Region was 4·3 per cent. In the Yorkshire coalfield area, which has been designated as an intermediate area, it was 4·2 per cent. On the other hand, in the Huddersfield employment exchange area, the area of the study concerned, the rate was as low as 1 per cent.
On the second criterion of loss of population due to migration, the situation is much more serious for the study

area but, here again, there are also other areas where the situation concerning migration is a good deal worse. For example, in the period from 1961 to 1968 the loss of population through migration from North-East Lancashire was 2·4 per cent. of the total. The comparable figure for the study area was 0·8 per cent. Again, the criteria were against the inclusion of the study area as an intermediate area.

Mr. Wainwright: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the very distressing figures of unemployment and outward migration from the Yorkshire coalfield, to which he has referred, would now be much less if the problem had been tackled earlier, perhaps even by a different Government?

Mr. Urwin: I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman's comment. What we are trying to do now—if I may be allowed to diverge a little to reply to this point—in the introduction or extension of assistance to areas outside the development areas is to offset the possibility of serious decline in those areas to the extent development areas have suffered it. Clearly, if the kind of action which we are now taking in the development areas had been done several years ago the situation would not be so bad now in the more depressed areas of high unemployment such as Scotland, Wales and the north of England. This is, indeed, the reason why we are taking the action of designation of and assistance to intermediate areas.
Despite this—and I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman in many of the points he has made—the area's industrial base is also fundamentally healthier than that in many other parts of the country, Look at the traditional wood textile industry. Despite all the problems, many of which are acknowledged by the N.E.D.C. report, the area has an international reputation, and so far has adjusted to rapid change with less difficulty than the cotton textile industry. The area also contains a flourishing engineering industry, which has added some diversification to the industrial structure and, as the study pointed out, its manufacturing industry as a whole probably has an export performance second to none in the country.
The hon. Gentleman has given the impression—at least, this was the impression


which I obtained—that as the Colne Valley has not been made into an intermediate area the problems are being completely neglected by the Government. This is by no means the case. The study pointed out the need to effect improvements to the environment. Under our new proposals local authorities in the region with schemes for the reclamation of derelict land which will be of assistance to industrial development will qualify for central Government grants at the new rate of 75 per cent., which is 50 per cent. higher than those which already existed, and which will be available to the whole of the region of Yorkshire and Humberside. This should, quite clearly make a significant contribution to improving the environment of this area.
The hon. Gentleman has referred at some length to worn-out houses, but I am sure it has not escaped his notice that there is new legislation which has proved of great assistance to local authorities in this area. It will facilitate slum clearance, by amendments to the compensation arrangements, and it creates a new system for the improvement of whole areas of old houses with a reasonable life left in them. Of course, it is essential that the local authorities should take full advantage of the new opportunities provided to them. I am convinced that the local authorities in this immediate area will not, having regard to the depth and extent and seriousness of their problems, be slow to make full use of the facilities provided. Improvement is not intended as substitute for slum clearance. We also hope that the councils in the area will press on vigorously with clearance, and there are certainly no Governmental limitations on their rate of progress.
When dealing with housing the hon. Gentleman referred to the problems relating to the green belt. I understand there has been quite a long delay in defining the size and shape of the green belt which surrounds the West Yorkshire conurbation—a large area including Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Halifax, Wakefield and Dewsbury.
Two public inquiries have been held. The first was to consider objections to the original plan submitted by the local authorities. The second was to consider additions to the green belt made

by the Minister of Housing and Local Government after receiving the report of the first inquiry. The Minister is considering the report from the second inquiry, but he has not yet reached a decision.
On the matter of delay, the hon. Gentleman himself is on record as saying that no decision should be reached until the Huddersfield and Colne Valley study has been published, digested and considered. The Minister has given the assurance that the study will be taken fully into account in arriving at a decision on the second inquiry.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the necessity for industrial development. The industrial development certificate policy which is pursued in the Yorkshire and Humberside region is very different from the rather stringent conditions applied to the more congested areas of, for example, the West Midlands and the South East. The Board of Trade administers the i.d.c. control in the region liberally.
In the last 3½ years only one small application for an i.d.c. has been refused in the whole of Yorkshire and Humberside. In fact, the rate at which approvals were being made for new industrial floor space in the region, which amounted to more than 22 million square feet in the period 1965–67, was roughly twice as much as in the preceding three years.
Only in very exceptional cases have the Government made any attempt to limit the expansion of existing firms in the region. Thus, a good deal has been done in the matter of development policy for the benefit and advantage of industry in the region as well as in the study area.
The hon. Gentleman properly referred to the matter of communications. There is no doubt, as the study emphasised, that the area will benefit greatly from the M62, Lancashire/Yorkshire motorway, which will run along its northern edge and on which construction work has already started. This recognises the importance of communications in this area and in areas far beyond it.
We should not under-estimate the considerable advantages the area possesses, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would be the last person to do so. I have already mentioned the reputation of the area's manufacturing industry,


although it undoubtedly faces difficult problems. The study emphasises in particular the need to modernise the stock of industrial buildings and the fact that an above average proportion of local employment is in industries where employment has declined and may be expected to continue to do so.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the additional difficulties, as he described them, as a result of the Government's decision not to implement that part of the recommendation of the Hunt Report in relation to building grants. We did not dismiss the Hunt Report bluntly and quickly, as the hon. Gentleman suggested. We studied in great depth problems drawn to our attention by the Hunt Committee.
In regard to building grant, if we had accepted the recommendation of a 25 per cent. grant throughout the whole of the North West and Yorkshire and Humberside, it would have been a complete departure in policy, providing a distinct advantage for those areas as against the worse problems in the development areas where such grants have always been closely tied to the provision of employment opportunities. Either we did it on this basis, difficult though it is, or it would have been unfair as well as being an extensive additional call on somewhat slight resources.
The study also points out, however, that the level of industrial skills in the area is higher than the national average, which is perhaps not surprising when one considers its long industrial history, to which the hon. Gentleman referred with pride. Industrial relations are good and there is above average provision of training facilities. This gives good grounds for hoping that it will be able to make the necessary adjustments to changing conditions.
The recent report on the wool textile industry, commissioned by the E.D.C., is of particular relevance to the study area. It makes proposals for action, both by the industry and by the Government, and we are giving them careful consideration.
I would never deny that the area has problems, as have many similar areas. In arriving at our decision on the designation of intermediate areas we were aware of the seriousness of these problems. As regional planning is a continuous process,

we shall always be ready, in the light of the information before us, to adjust these policies from time to time and prevent a situation worsening to the point when there is a possibility of real hardship for the people of the area concerned.
In the case of the development areas this step should have been taken years ago. If it had been, we probably would not be faced now with the problems of declining major industries and a lack of employment opportunities to meet the wastage of jobs. We shall continue to watch the position and the problems to which the study has drawn attention.

Orders of the Day — TYNESIDE

8.28 a.m.

Dame Irene Ward: I am glad that the Consolidated Fund Bill has given me an opportunity to raise the problems of the Port of the Tyne, the future of which is causing great anxiety to everybody who has any knowledge of Tyneside. I hope that at the conclusion of my brief remarks we will be given certain assurances and be told what is to be done to promote a happier and more prosperous future than seems to be in view at present.
It is difficult, when raising a general matter, to know which Minister should be responsible for replying. While the Port of the Tyne comes under the Ministry of Transport, its problems are interwoven in such a way that they deeply affect trade and all Ministers dealing with the nationalised industries.
Since we last discussed the Northern Area and Tyneside in particular we have had the devastating news that the ironore trade, very important to Tyneside, is now to be developed at Teesside—the worst blow which has befallen Tyneside for a long time. In addition there is also to be moved to Redcar the oil fuel depot. These two new decisions have caused even greater anxiety on Tyneside.
I remember before the port became nationalised that the Tyne Improvement Commission, which was then responsible for the port, got together with local authorities and private industry to carry out a survey into the iron ore trade, so worried were they about the position. The survey was successful; there would have been no difficulties about extending facilities and increasing shipments, supplying


the industry right down to Tees-side. We had long discussions on this and there was hope, because we knew that unless we could retain the iron ore trade the future of the Tyne would offer great problems.
A week or two ago I pointed out that the Tyne had lost a tremendous amount of trade through the decline in the coal exporting trade. It does not look as if we will ever be able to take part in that export trade again. There are fewer ships sailing into the port than ever. I recently had the sad duty of pointing out that the hostel operated by the British Sailors' Society, Angus House, in my constituency, at North Shields, has had to close after many years of service because there were so few sailors coming into the Tyne. It was impossible for Angus House to be kept in the service of the Society. All these melancholy facts put together give cause for great anxiety.
We had a document called "Regional Ports Survey" by the Northern Economic Planning Council. This report, which was very full and covered all the ports in the northern area, forecast an unhappy future for the port of the Tyne. The report stated that the Newcastle Quay, which has been a feature of Newcastle life for a long time, would probably no longer be retained because it was running at a loss. Indeed, I think that it had been running at a loss for many years.
I read the report with mixed feelings, because I had hoped that some useful suggestions might have been made about what should happen to Tyneside. But the report was purely a survey of conditions. It was full of words, it was very voluminous and detailed, but it did not make any suggestions for resolving our future problems.
I thought that when the Prime Minister came to the miners' picnic it would be a good opportunity to draw his attention to the problems of the Tyne. Though, as I have said before, the Prime Minister is not my favourite man, he wrote me a letter, part of which I will quote, because I am hoping that the Minister will be able to elaborate on the view expressed by the Prime Minister. I am glad that he did not enter into any political controversy. He discussed the matter with me, by letter, on the broad basis of the problem that we had to face. Though we have

tremendous political battles about the northern area and the Tyne, I think that we have not got beyond the political controversy, because this is a matter of our future livelihood.
Like other hon. Members, I have been about Tyneside for a long time. I have seen its battles and its disasters, and I have seen some of the recoveries. The Tees Valley Trading Estate and the West Chirton Trading Estate were being developed before the Second World War. I think that all Governments have tried to re-establish new industries to meet the difficulties of the declining industries which have proved such a fatal problem for us.
We were sorry that the Prime Minister could not come and go round the port with us, but in his letter to me of 15th July he said:
For example, we are aware of the problems of the Port of Tyne Authority; and the various Departments and agencies concerned are already actively pursuing what can be done to meet immediate difficulties and to permit as efficient as possible operations in the future.
I should like the Minister to tell me exactly what is involved in that statement by the Prime Minister, which I was very glad to have. I want to know what the agencies are, and who the agencies are. I know the various Departments involved and their responsibilities and interests, but I do not know anything about how they will tackle this problem. Nor do I know what the agencies are and what they are doing.
I make this one rather cynical comment to the Minister. I hope he will not tell us that one of the agencies is the Northern Economic Planning Council, because I have just studied with great care a report from that Council called "Outline Strategy for the North". It would be very difficult for anybody to find anything in it from which we can take heart when it comes to the point of dealing with our problems on Tyneside. It is full of words and full of detailed, and I am sure accurate, descriptions of the problems, but they are only words and there is nothing about what action we as a body on Tyneside have to take through the Government, through the politicians, through industry, and through the trade unions, which gives us cause for hope. I therefore rule out that Council as an agency; but I shall be interested


to hear from the Minister what the Prime Minister meant by that sentence.
I should like a full description of what is to be done, particularly as we are to lose our iron-ore trade and our oil terminal. I am not saying anything about the luck of Tees-side, because that area has a tremendous problem in building up its industrial position for the future, but as a Tynesider and as the Member for a constituency on Tyneside my objective is to look after the people whom I represent. I think that all of us, irrespective of our political views, have tried to co-operate to ensure that Tyneside is never again faced with the ghastly situation that it had to face in 1931.
When I wrote to the Prime Minister I asked him whether, if the shipbuilding industry wanted a new dry dock or new ship-repairing facilities, a loan would be provided to help the industry. In reply the Prime Minister said:
Moreover, the question of constructing on the Tyne either a dry dock for shipbuilding or a gravity dock for ship repairs is a matter for the industry itself in the first instance."—
I have no quarrel with that—
I have no doubt that if this were thought to be a commercial proposition, provided Government financial assistance could be obtained, those concerned would come forward with proposals.
I do not want to start a controversy between the Clyde and the Tyne. In my constituency there is Smiths Docks, a major ship-repairing yard with a worldwide reputation. It has done extremely well. Some years ago—I think it was before the present Government came to power—it was decided that a ship-repairing dock should be established on the Firth of Clyde. I hoped at the time that would not mean that some of the ships which come in for repairs at Smiths Docks would go to the Firth of Clyde. As the Prime Minister rightly pointed out, ship-repairing is a very difficult and fluctuating industry. We have a great deal of unemployment in Smiths Docks at the moment. This has been emphasised to me by the trade unions. The Prime Minister was not entitled to write that off. Many of these men who have been paid off at Smiths Docks are good skilled workers and I want to put their case.
When the new ship-repairing yard was opened on the Firth of Clyde, I wondered how it would affect employment on Tyneside. I made an investigation and found

that the yard had gone bankrupt. Something like £4 million capital had been put into it from various sources. I believe it was bought privately for about £1 million. I do not think we should judge what might happen on the Tyne and be parsimonious about grants which could be helpful there when all that money has gone into a derelict and bankrupt concern on the Firth of Clyde.
We have a magnificent ship-repairing yard in Smiths Docks on Tyneside. If as the Prime Minister suggested, it is decided by the consortium of ship builders on the Tyne that they would like a new dock there, I hope that the Government will look favourably on the decision and help us. Recently we have been doing well in shipbuilding. That is partly due to action taken by the Conservative Government, mostly due to the magnificent private enterprise yards on the Tyne, and also, I gladly acknowledge, to help given by the present Government. We are doing well in shipbuilding, but not in ship repairing.
The other day we discussed the British Steel Corporation. I wish to read to the House what the Minister of Power said would happen to deal with areas which have lost their coal trade and in which mines have closed:
The British Steel Corporation and the National Coal Board are to use the influence of their organisation to support Government measures to attract industry to areas which might be hit by coalfield and steel plant closures.
It is all talk. We have heard it all before. He said:
The Corporation is to appoint a social policy adviser purposely to deal with these problems and to help particularly in areas where steel plants may be closing down after there have been problems with coal mines.
What is a social policy adviser? What we want on Tyneside is help with industry. I am pleased to have people there helping us with the development of social policy, but in relation to the problems arising from the loss of the iron ore trade, I do not see what a social policy adviser will do.
I then asked,
Will the right hon. Gentleman kindly tell us in this regional context what is to be done to help the Tyne now that it has been decided to take ore shipments from the Tyne and to transfer them to Teesside? There is far too much talk; we never hear about action.
The Minister said, "I am sorry". In fact he did not mean that he was sorry because he bit my head off. He said,


I am sorry, but the hon. Lady has risen too late. The point she raises was answered two Questions ago. The answer to her question about regional policy is that last year we spent £260 million on aid to the development areas, a strong contrast to what the Tories managed when they were in power."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd July, 1969; Vol. 787, c. 1474.]
That was not true. I have been through dozens of Questions and I find nothing about the Tyne. The whole of regional policy and of policy for helping the development areas was Tory policy. It started immediately after the Labour Government lost the 1931 Election. It was started by the late Stanley Baldwin and developed later by my right hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg). The Minister was unwise to try to re-kindle the old political battles. The transfer of the iron-ore trade to the Tees is under his Government's policy. It is the taxpayers who are spending £250 million, not the Government, on the development areas, but even if it were £500 million it would relate to the past and I am referring to a new situation which has arisen on the Tyne. The British Steel Corporation, the Minister of Power or someone else has decided to develop Teesside to the detriment of the Tyne.
Today, although I am glad for the employment and future stability of Teesside, I do not wish to see the Tyne made derelict to build up another area. It is no good to us, to our workers, or to our industry on the Tyne. It is no good to the attraction of new industries to the Tyne that they see all these new facilities developing on Teesside.
The Minister of Power was wrong. He had not said a word about the Tyne. I was able later, on a point of order, to point out that I was too late because I had not caught Mr. Speaker's eye earlier. The Minister must have been ashamed of himself because he did not know the reply. He did not help Tyneside.
Today I want a complete and satisfying answer. I do not want us to delve into the past or to discuss anything except the development which the Prime Minister has promised and what the social service worker and the social organisations and even Wellbar House are going to do to met our problems on the Tyne.
I am certain that all my political opponents and political friends will be interested because we are interested from an industrial and from a human point of view about what is to happen to Tyneside. I hope the Minister is fully aware of what I am thinking and that he will be able to give us a scheme.
The business about iron ore has been considered for a long time. It is not new. They have had a lot of time, if they are concerned about building up Teesside, to consider our future on Tyneside, and I shall be glad to hear about it.

8.58 a.m.

Mr. R. W. Elliott (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North): My hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) has said in the course of her interesting and useful speech that her desire is to serve the people she represents on Tyneside. It might be an appropriate moment for me an another Tyneside Member to say that Tyneside knows no more faithful or energetic servant than her. It is typical of her to sit throughout an all-night sitting to raise once again the problems of the Tyne area for which we know she has such affection.
The problem of the Tyne is enormous. We are faced with a crisis in the port of the Tyne. My hon. Friend has talked of other days when Tyneside was not so prosperous and of her fear of returning to such a period as the area knew in 1931. I well remember that one of the first things I did on becoming a Member was to sail down the Tyne with her when we were passengers and guests of the Tyne Improvement Commission on their launch. I remember her saying "The River is busy today" and she recalled sailing down it in the same launch in the early 'thirties when the yards were silent and grass was growing in the Jarrow streets and there was unemployment throughout the area. I agree that we do not want to return to that situation again.
My hon. Friend has mentioned the Northern Economic Planning Council. We used to hear a great deal about it at the beginning of the present Government's two periods in office. It was to cure our ills, derived as it was from the Department of Economic Affairs, which was to cure the nation's ills. We have had an enormous number of voluminous documents—not only the last one from


which my hon. Friend quoted but the very first that the Council produced, which said:
The ports are of critical significance in themselves as generators of employment and as direct contributors to the economy of the areas immediately surrounding them.
That is quite true, and today, as we face the problem of the port of Tyne, it is very salutary to realise that once again in the North-East we have twice the national average of unemployment. It is terribly distressing that 64,000 people in the northern region are unemployed. Well may we look to those activities, centres, industries and ports which will assuredly, if they are kept in a prosperous condition, generate employment.
This is not the first time in recent years that we have had a debate on the future of the port of Tyne. It is some years since my hon. Friend and I took part in a very useful debate, which was very well answered on behalf of the Government by the late Mr. Stephen Swingler. He gave us a great deal of hope that all sorts of probes were taking place on the future rôle of the Tyne as a port. As my hon. Friend said, it has always been the Ministry of Transport—and one recognises certain difficulties associated with the Ministry in this regard—which has been responsible for the Tyne.
When we last had a debate the future of the iron-ore shipments was crucial, and my hon. Friend and I appealed strongly for the possibility of all the iron ore required for the North-East of England, for Consett and for the South Durham steel complex, being brought in through the Tyne. There is not the slightest doubt that if this had been possible it would have made the Tyne prosperous for many years to come. This is not to be, it seems, and the oil terminal is also going now.
We want to know the possibilities for the future. In the debate some time ago the possibility of the development of Tyne Dock was discussed. It was recognised that this would cost an enormous amount of money. Nevertheless, it might well still be money well invested, and the possibility should be investigated. The roll-on, roll-off train from the Scandinavian countries was then considered to be a very real possibility for Tyne trade. Scandinavian trade is indeed developing, and there should be considerable scope

for further prodding and probing as to increasing this trade into the port of Tyne.
I wish this morning wholeheartedly to support all that my hon. Friend said and has done recently, including her letter to the Prime Minister. We all listened with great interest and some hope to the reply she received.
I agree with all that my hon. Friend has said. The Newcastle quay has been extremely important to the life, welfare and well-being of Newcastle, the capital city of our great region, and of the region as a whole. We want it to go on thriving. We want it to go on living, but above all we want to get out of the atmosphere of gloom and doom, the feeling of despondency, into which people have slipped in recent months. We want—and I hope that we shall have it from the Minister this morning—a message of hope.

9.5 a.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Neil Carmichael): rose—

Mr. Eric Moonman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. A short while ago, you ruled that, as I had come in after a Minister had started to reply I was not able to speak. I have been sitting here throughout most of this debate. I am most interested in it and I am not able to speak because you are calling my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport. Presumably, the same ruling operates again.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have given no ruling to the hon. Gentleman from the Chair. This is the Second Reading debate on a Bill and any hon. Member who is successful in catching the eye of the Chair will have the right to speak, as the hon. Gentleman may well do.

Mr. Moonman: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to detain the House, but this is an important matter to me and I will have to take up further the question of whether it was a ruling from the Chair. I am learning the hard way. You did not answer the second part of my submission. If an hon. Member who has sat through a debate and wishes to take part on the whole question of the Consolidated Fund


is not called, I think that you should give some guidance as to whether there is any point in one sitting here for the rest of the morning.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I thought that I had given a clear indication that any hon. Member who is successful in catching the eye of the Chair will be called and have a right to be called to speak on Second Reading. On this occasion, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary caught the eye of the Chair.

Mr. Roy Roebuck: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I, too, seek some guidance, although I would not seek to question the Chair, on the question of the practice in this and other debates on the Consolidated Fund Bill. I think that I would not be challenged if I said that the modern practice of putting up a list of subjects is not yet a convention but is a convenient device—I use the word in its proper sense—by the Chair to divide up the period of hours. It would therefore follow, surely, that the Chair would not necessarily be guided in its choice of speakers by whatever happened to be the subjects which happened to be on the board. I would be grateful if you could tell us whether this is so and that any hon. Member who seeks to catch the eye of the Chair to speak about any matter for which the Government have responsibility without advocating legislation can be called.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman's analysis is correct. Any hon. Member who rises in his place on Second Reading may be successful in catching the eye of the Chair and, therefore, if called, would have the right to speak on Second Reading. Other than that, the Chair is not in a position to give advice.

Mr. Carmichael: The hon. Lady for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) wondered which Ministry was involved. As she went on with her speech I began to sympathise with her sentiment, because she ranged widely, although I agree with her that with the very idea of the Port of the Tyne, which is the heart of the area, would go the problems of the hinterland as well, along with all the industries that have been or are likely to be situated in the vicinity of the river itself.
However, I interpreted the subject listed as being more concerned with the river and the responsibilities that fall to the Ministry of Transport rather than in the wider sense, although obviously we in the Ministry are well aware of the problems of the hinterland because a port does not exist unless there are goods to move in and out. Undoubtedly, a difficult line of demarcation is involved here, particularly in relation to the points raised by the hon. Lady. Perhaps she will forgive me, therefore, if, on occasion, I do not appear to give as precise answers as she would wish in relation to the total development of Tyneside.
The hon. Lady is a Tynesider and I am a Clydesider. Our areas have very much the same type of history and background and they face similar problems today. Many of these problems stem from the fact that we were among the first ports and among the first shipbuilding areas and that the ships then built were very different from modern ships. In some ways, this is sad for the upper reaches of the Tyne as it is for the Clyde, but nationally it is a good thing that there should be areas capable of handling the much larger ships of the future.
I know what a blow it was to the Tyne when the British Steel Corporation announced that it was proposing to have an ore depôt on the Tees. This announcement greatly affected the Clyde, too, because it was felt that the Clyde would have been a better choice, simply because of its ability to take ships of almost any size. But we have to accept the commercial judgment of the Corporation that the Tees is the most suitable area for the type of ship which the Corporation foresees as meeting its requirements. The decision about the oil fuel depôt was affected by the reduction of the number of depôts and the greater utilisation of large tankers, which is becoming an important feature of the oil industry.
The hon. Lady spoke of the regional ports survey and she and the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North (Mr. R. W. Elliott) spoke of the Economic Planning Council. We are all impatient with the necessity to collect facts and figures. It is an impatience which is not confined to this country. But with the scale of modern industry and modern investment, great care must be taken before


a final and frequently irrevocable decision is taken. I would be chary about being too precipitate.
The hon. Lady said that she was a "Tyneside nationalist" and that while she was willing to congratulate the Tees, she felt that her job was to consider her own area. Unfortunately, the Government have to consider problems in a wider context. They have to consider the Tees, the Thames, the Severn, the Clyde and the Mersey, as well as the Tyne. But hon. Members from those areas are "nationalists" for their areas.
The problem on the Tyne, as with many other ports, is that existing facilities are old fashioned and under utilised. The Port of Tyne Authority came into being only in August, 1968, and it is working hard to deal with the many difficult problems of the harbour. Many buildings are out of date and worn out. Renovation would be extremely difficult and, in any case, there is not the available space on the narrow river frontage for truly modern development.
Another problem is the North Shields Fish Quay, where some of the existing structures are decaying fast and would need a great deal of money to put them right, and where the existing lay-out is far from ideal.

Dame Irene Ward: I hope that we have settled the problem of the fish quay my means of the Albert Edward Dock. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell the House that we are very fortunate to have been developing a new freezer type of trawler, with which we have had enormous successes. Three new trawlers have been built by John Purdy, a company which has almost created the revolution in the fishing industry, and which is now going to build three more trawlers. The fishing industry on the Tyne, in North Shields, is doing a wonderful job through private enterprise. I would like to know what the Government will do instead of criticising the private enterprise.

Mr. Carmichael: I was not criticising private industry. I was merely pointing out some of the historic and geographical difficulties. I am aware of the point which the hon. Lady makes, which in other circumstances might have been called a "commercial" for the fishing industry and the excellent new deep-

freeze trawlers. If a major new terminal for large bulk carriers of iron ore is being developed on the Tees—and it is too early to say whether it is definite or not—the future of Tyne's iron ore traffic must be doubtful.
This is part of the historic trend which many ports are going through. One of the reasons for our White Paper on the ports, and why we will be introducing legislation—not in a doctrinaire way—is to give some authority the power and the money to say what is the best way to develop Britain's ports for the good of Britain. The Tyne may be the heart blood of its area, as the hon. Lady said, but it may be used for something quite different. If the iron ore trade and the coal trade, which has also been declining, were to disappear, the future of the Tyne could be very different, but this would not necessarily be a bad thing.
I do not want to give the impression that everything is black. The most encouraging feature is the very high morale of the new united management group in the port, which is making a steady and sensible attack on its many historic and geographical difficulties. It is doing its best to get rid of redundant and uneconomic facilities and to rationalise both its physical assets and its management structure. It proposes to produce extra land—this is where things are moving—at the upper end of Tyne Dock by filling in an area presently occupied by disused coal staiths. It has plans to fill in Jarrow Slake, a shallow inlet on the south side of the Tyne, with which the hon. Lady will be more familiar than I am, and which has already been partly reclaimed to make Tyne Dock and the nearby iron ore quay. This proposal would produce a site of about 200 acres for industry which could be served by ships up to 40,000 tons dead weight. The management obviously realises that there have to be changes and that we are moving towards a different era.
The Tyne Port Authority is in close and continuous consultation with the Ministry of Transport and the National Ports Council. The Council recently sent two of its senior officers to the Tyne for a full on-the-spot examination and discussion of problems and prospects. Within the last week we in the Ministry and the National Ports Council have talked to the Ministry of Agriculture,


Fisheries and Food about the Fish Quay. Discussions between all concerned with the Tyne problems are continuing and we will do all we can as a Ministry to help the port authority by advice and, in suitable circumstances, by loans and grants under the Harbours Act.
I have tried to convey to the hon. Lady and to the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North that I have a great deal of sympathy with them, because of my own experience in Glasgow and on the Clyde, in this period of transition from one type of cargo and one type of work to another, from heavy industry to the more diversified industries of today. One of the problems affecting both this area and the Clyde has been their great reliance on heavy industry. There was a lack of adaptability and a lack of opportunity, because everything was dependent upon whether the yards or the steel works were employed. They employed such large numbers of people that, when they were not working, the entire area decayed. Although we are going through a difficult period, from what I have seen and from reports I have received from the Port of Tyne Authority, which, after all, has been in existence for less than a year, things are much more encouraging than the hon. Lady conveyed to the House at the beginning of her speech.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I again appeal for brief speeches. I think that there are 15 debates left.

Mr. Moonman: On a point of order. I seek your guidance and a ruling, Mr. Speaker. Would you indicate what the procedure is when an hon. Member wishing to speak has not been called and, therefore, is left in the position of being able to speak only after the Minister? I raised a similar point—not the exact point—with Mr. Deputy Speaker a short while ago. There is need for a ruling on this rather than the advice given by the Chair to individual Members privately.

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman was not here for the debate for which his name was down, he must wait until the end of the debate.

Mr. Roebuck: Further to that point of order. I think that you, Mr. Speaker, would be the first to recognise that this is a most important issue for hon. Members who seek to intervene in a debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill. As I understand it, there is no convention that the Chair will call at a particular time only an hon. Member whose name is on the list. Although it would clearly be improper to ask the Chair to state its reasons for calling an hon. Member, it would appear that if the occupant of the Chair, in deciding whether to call an hon. Member, is now to take into account whether that hon. Member's name is on a list, which is in no way a special list, this would appear to be making a convention out of what is purely a convenient device.
I submit that the usefulness of the device which has grown up is diminished somewhat when some hon. Member; whose names are on the list do not take part in the debate. Therefore, if its purpose is as a convenience to hon. Members so that they may know when to come in to be called, if hon. Members do not take part in the debate the usefulness of the device is thereby lost.
Thus, it may well be that, particularly in view of what has happened this morning, when a number of debates have collapsed prematurely, the Chair might want to consider whether this is a procedure which should continue today.

Mr. Speaker: I must advise the hon. Member that most hon. Members who have their names down for a debate—and the order of the debate is fixed by ballot—take good care that they are here in plenty of time ahead of the debate to make sure. I cannot go back on the order of the ballot because an hon. Member was not in his place when the subject was debated.

Mr. Roebuck: Further to that point of order. With the utmost respect, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that that is something of a moral judgment by the Chair—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Chair has no morals. The Chair makes no moral judgments. The Chair follows the practice of the House. We balloted an order of debates. If we complete the list of debates, the hon. Member will then be able to take part in a debate on the


Consolidated Fund once the order of subjects is completed. It is an hon. Member's duty to watch the state of the debate during the night. I am sorry that the hon. Member missed it.

Mr. Roebuck: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. While in no way seeking to elevate the Chair into the position of passing moral judgments as to whether hon. Members should be here, I respectfully ask whether you are now saying that it is the policy of the Chair not to call an hon. Member unless his name is on a list for a certain debate until the list has been exhausted, and that the Chair takes that into consideration in calling hon. Members.

Mr. Speaker: Order. When a debate is in progress, every hon. Member who seeks to take part in it, whether his name is on the list or not, is called. Then, the debate completes itself. Once a debate on a topic is completed, we go to the next one. That is not a new position, and I think it has no fault.

Mr. Moonman: Further to the point of order. Your reply, Mr. Speaker, suggests that I may have been misunderstood. Clearly, a Member who is not present cannot be called, but in my case I was here.

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Member was here and was not called, I simply do not understand it.

Mr. Moonman: Neither do I.

Mr. Speaker: For the moment, Mr. Haseldine.

Orders of the Day — COLONY HOLIDAYS SCHEMES

9.28 a.m.

Mr. Norman Haseldine: I am glad to have had the opportunity to catch your eye at this time, Mr. Speaker, following a very long night's vigil, to raise the issue—which, I am sure, is of wide interest and appropriate at this time—of the wider provision of colony holidays for schoolchildren.
Virtually the whole of the school population is now on the long summer vacation and, undoubtedly, the children are feeling extremely delighted at being liberated from normal school activities for anything from six weeks to two

months. I am quite sure that although today we live in a much more affluent society, with wider provision for family holidays, even yet, unfortunately, there will be hundreds of thousands of young people, probably from the larger families, who will be in a position to take a holiday of only one week and, perhaps, many schoolchildren—it would be interesting to be able to find the figures—who may have no holiday at all.
In recent years, as my right hon. Friend is most certainly aware, a good deal of attention has been paid to the problem of occupying—I think that is the word—young people, little ones and those of junior school age, during the long summer vacation, and we have become aware of the tremendous efforts of enthusiasts—volunteers—who through the local authorities have assisted play groups in the summer period. I would like to congratulate my right hon. Friend upon the contribution which has been made by the Department—£150.000—to help with these.
I am sure many people are looking at the problem of the summer holidays, a problem because so many young people are free and wanting to be able to undertake something of interest and to be occupied in a useful way and in an environment new to them. I am sure those who saw the recent announcement in the Press that an L.S.E. student had organised holidays for 115 children whose parents could not afford a holiday would applaud him, especially in view of the fact that many students these days are rather subject to criticism. Here indeed is an excellent and worthwhile effort as a result of which 85 children will go into camps in Germany due to the efforts of that student at the London School of economics. This is the sort of encouragement which we like to see.
I think my right hon. Friend will bear with me when I put another aspect of the problem which is found in our great industrial cities. In my own City of Bradford, for instance, I find that of the working women 60 per cent. are married, and a mother's problems are accentuated during the summer period because she is working for most of the long number of weeks, and will have only one or two or at most four weeks' holiday, so that for four or more weeks the young


people of her household are largely left to an empty house.
I am sure that my right hon. Friend has very wide knowledge of the provisions which are made in other countries in Europe and in Canada and the United States, arrangements known as holiday colonies or, in France, as colonies de vacances. It is a system which also operates very widely in Italy and Germany. As I understand the position at the moment, in France alone, to take one example, about 1½ million French children will be spending three weeks in colonies de vacances. I understand from the history of the organisation that it goes back to the 1890s. There has been a continuing organisation from 1918 onwards. I am sure the whole House will share the great sorrow we felt when we learned of that very tragic accident on the Loire last week when the children were attending one of those very many colonies de vacances.
There is, I feel, a lesson which Great Britain can learn, not only from the Continental countries but also from America and Canada, in making a much wider provision than that which already exists. Normally, holiday colonies in Europe are provided by a variety of oganisations—Churches, political organisations, trade unions; but, above all, they are helped centrally by the ministry of education, the idea being that children should have a change of their environment and of climate, so that those who live on the coast go to the mountains, and those who live in the countryside go to the sea. This is, I am sure, something we in this country would welcome. Many parents welcome the facilities which are provided.
This matter has not been overlooked in this country. I pay tribute to the Council for Colony Holidays for its work and to the Department of Education and Science for the rôle it has played and for its grant. I also wish to congratulate Mr. George Taylor, who is an ex-director of education for Leeds, and Mr. Christopher Green, who have played prominent parts in development colony holidays in residential centres.
I would also pay tribute to the work of the voluntary organisations, the Boys Scouts, Girl Guides, Boys' Brigade, and many others who provide interesting

camps for young people in the summer. I wish them well. I also pay tribute to the Youth Hostel Association.
In spite of the work of all these organisations, I feel that we could be a little more forward-looking in encouraging wider use of facilities. Following experience in the Council for Colony Holidays, I wonder whether the right hon. Lady would consider looking objectively at existing provision in many of our schools. In an answer to a Question which I recently put down, the Secretary of State said that the use of school premises for commuity purposes was on the increase. I hope that such use will continue to expand.
It is not inconceivable that many of our modern schools could be used in summer by turning classrooms into dormitories; use could be made of the catering and sports facilities. During the summer period the use of schools for these purposes could be organised on a cross-city basis with young people using facilities on an exchange basis. One would not expect children in Bradford and Leeds to be particularly interested in the use of school premises in their own area, whereas they might well be keen on using school facilities in a completely different area or city.
Local authorities could run pilot schemes to see what modifications or adaptations would be required in order to provide camp-bed accommodation, sleeping bags, and so on, so that holiday colonies could be development in many of our modern schools.
I hope that the Department will be able to say that during the winter it will encourage the training of responsible people as directors of such camps during the summer, and that university students and students from teacher trainer training colleges could be given the opportunity to be trained as monitors and helpers in such camps and be paid for their services. Such a system is widely followed in Europe. The children of, for example, Bradford could have a change of environment by staying at a colony in, say, Lancaster, and the children of Lancaster, being used to the sea, could enjoy the Yorkshire countryside. The public are very much aware of the expense involved in providing schools and would be pleased to know that school accommodation was being utilised throughout the year.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will not reply by saying that this is not a job for her Department, particularly in view of the imagination which that Department has shown in support of the Council for Colony Holidays and the use of school accommodation out of school time. We are debating an important topic, and, having spoken about it with my local director of education, I am sure that, with a little push, the ball would really start rolling. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will consider conducting a small inquiry, comprised of people with knowledge of colony holidays of this type abroad, to examine the matter in detail.
Colony holidays of this sort need not be free. I am sure that parents would be willing to pay a reasonable sum to enable their children to spend two or three weeks away from home at a colony. The capital expenditure involved in establishing the camps need not be great, considering that, apart from purchasing camp beds, which are mass produced and are not expensive, and curtains or venetian blinds, little would be required.
Many children unfortunately do not have regular holidays. We in Britain have not caught on to the colony holiday idea nearly as fast as the people of many other countries, and I hope that we shall now start the ball rolling in an imaginative way.

9.43 a.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Miss Alice Bacon): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Haseldine) for his interest in a matter which is most worthy of support.
My Department has been interested in, and associated with, the Council for Colony Holidays since its inception in 1961 and has paid a grant of £3,000 per annum for the three years since 1965, with smaller grants for the two following years. This financial assistance has been viewed by the Department and the council as an initial pump-priming grant made with the intention that the council should be financially self-supporting as soon as possible.
In 1961 the first all-British colony was attended by 15 boys. I understand that about 2,500 children are expected to attend the council's colonies in 1969. This expansion alone has justified the Depart-

ment's support. There is no doubt that the council's success so far is due to the ability and energy of its founders and the loyalty and enthusiasm of its officers and organisers.
I agree that holiday schools or colonies provide excellent opportunities for children of all backgrounds to come together on equal terms and through active participation in a balanced programme of activities can extend the children's horizons and broaden their outlook. They are not just holidays but have a strong educational bias, not in the form of set lessons perhaps, but by introducing the children to new interests and hobbies and encouraging them to make their own amusements.
There is room for further expansion in this field. The council puts its target as participation by 10,000 children a year. We need also to remember the contributions made by other youth organisations in providing holiday activities for their younger members, which, although they are not on precisely the same lines as the colony holidays, have similar objectives.
The cost of such provision is an important consideration, particularly when local authorities are having to keep a careful rein on their spending. I could not urge local authorities to incur very great additional expenditure by setting up their own colonies, or sending more children to those run by the council, much as I endorse the view of the hon. Member. I will look at what my hon. Friend says about this being self-supporting. Some authorities operate these schemes already, and I hope that they will continue to do so.
I recently visited schools in the mining area of the West Riding around Doncaster. I found that at Rossington, in what was traditionally the "pit week" when the collieries close, a lot of the children were preparing to go to Grassington, in the Lake District, on a school camp. The well-known Mexborough College is to exchange, not for a holiday, but work, with the Dartington School, which is a great innovation. In Mexborough they are thinking of taking over some kind of accommodation for the Dartington pupils.
The Government have set aside a sum of money to be spent in the next few years on the urban programme to be


used in specially deprived areas. For the second phase we asked local authorities to put in bids for any worthwhile objective. Most of the money was used for nursery schools. This was certainly true in Leeds and Bradford, but two local education authorities applied for money to be used for a camping holiday of this kind. They will be receiving a 75 per cent. grant from the Exchequer. If a local authority under this programme wanted to spend £1,000 in the coming years, £750 would come from the Exchequer. This would apply to areas of great social need. Some of the areas in my hon. Friend's constituency could qualify.
The Nuffield Foundation has made a generous contribution to enable children from educational priority areas to take part in the council's activities. My hon. Friend has suggested the greater use of existing schools and this is something we must consider. There are practical difficulties to be overcome and of course it is primarily a matter for the local authorities. I have been interested to see that a few comprehensive schools have boarding facilities. That is something which needs greater encouragement. In areas where this is so it would be very easy to put into operation the suggestion that my hon. Friend has made.
To sum up, I agree that the colony holidays schemes for school children can perform a very useful social and educational function, particularly if the courses cater for a good cross-section of young people. Some might consider that other educational matters should have a higher priority. But I am sure that local education authorities and other bodies will take note of this debate. In particular, if authorities can give children in deprived areas a chance to take part in these holiday schemes, they will have performed a very useful service.

Orders of the Day — LONDON DOCKS

9.50 a.m.

Captain Walter Elliot: I wish to draw attention to the problems in the London docks. I have been associated with docks off and on for a good many years. On the problems in the London docks my attention was first focussed by letters written to me by

Merchant Navy skippers using the docks. I should like to quote extracts from two of those letters. The first letter states:
S.S. … arrived and anchored off Southend 20th January as no berth or labour available. Berthed 1st February and commenced discharge, short manned until 7th February, completing 18th February after delays caused by stop-work meetings, strikes, etc. … Delay 20 days.
The second letter reads:
M.V. … Arrived and anchored Southend 23rd January. As there was no hope of berth or labour in the near foreseeable future she was diverted to Southampton where the London cargo was discharged, the cost of return to London being mainly at the ship owner's expense, and obviously adding to the cost of the goods to the eventual consumer.
No one would deny that delays like that are damaging. All, or nearly all, our raw materials and finished goods pass through our ports, and, of all our sea ports, London is the most important because of the large proportion with which it deals.
What are the troubles and difficulties there? It was said recently of British industry that there is a tinge of anarchy. At times it seems not unjust to apply that expression at least to some of the docks and wharves in London. In fact, the way ahead to a brighter and more prosperous future, if the undergrowth is cleared, is well within reach and in a reasonable time. But I must admit that the undergrowth is dense and prickly, and to clear it is a complex and delicate problem.
To illustrate this complexity, I should like to give the views of two employers. The first says,
… including, of course, our national export and import traders, who see their businesses being held up and ruined by strikes, and more and more ships being driven away from London to continental ports. Led by a self-appointed and self-styled liaison committee and fanned by agitators and troublemakers, the general attitude at the docks has led only to irresponsibility, chaos and frustration.
I could go on. The second says:
The success of this agreement as applied to No.… Berth has been that the crew of 20 men has received packaged timber and forest products from up to seven gangs discharging ex ship and has sorted, piled and delivered such goods up to a total of 4,200 tons dw. in one ten-hour shift.… the grain terminal is to operate on a two-shift system, while the labour at the U.S. Lines container berth have regularly honoured their agreement to work at any hour of the day or night, this having already included Whit


Monday Whit Sunday and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
I could go on with other employers on those lines. There is a stark contrast between the two. To simplify my approach to this complicated and intricate industry of the Port of London, I have looked at it under three headings: men, management and modernisation. The third is the modernisation not only of machines but also of methods, and is the responsibility of both men and managements. It will not be achieved without the help of both, but I should like to discuss the first two elements, men and management, and combine the third with them.
First, let me consider the men. I do not suppose I am saying anything new when I say that their attitudes to a large extent are formed by past history. The average age is high, and their memories are long. They seek high wages, and their resistance to change is based on a desire for security. The rigid rules of demarcation spring from the anxiety for job security. For many years London port workers have been paid on a piecework basis, but now they have a guaranteed weekly wage, called fallback, of £17, plus an incentive bonus. Piecework systems are still retained, but I think it is admitted that they are a prolific source of trouble. In any case they are an obstacle to what seems to be an essential need; namely, the introduction of flexible manning, and by that I mean for the men to be interchangeable and the numbers in the gangs to be decided on grounds of efficiency and safety and changed as necessary with changing conditions.
Without that mobility, it is not possible to take advantage of modern mechanical developments. What is asked for from the men is not the sweat of piecework, but the operation of machinery and the flexible approach that is needed to make its installation worth while. They are offered more horsepower at their elbow, and it would be strange indeed if they were to continue to resist this offer, because of what it would give them.
Since decasualisation the men have been freed from the insecurity of not knowing what the weekly wage will be. At least they know that there is a line below which it will not fall. But decasualisation is only a means to an end, and the end is the abolition of all the

remaining restrictions and the effective use of manpower and facilities, including the fullest possible use of mechanical aids. Acceptance of these will mean not only a speedier handling of cargo and a quicker turnround but the best possible earning opportunities for the men.
I should like to refer briefly to the imbalance in the labour force. To cut a long story short, on decasualisation in 1967 the companies were obliged to absorb labour irrespective of the physical capacity of the men. I make no comment on that, but each company finds itself with about 20 per cent. of the labour force who are not able, and some not willing, to work productively. In addition, under the voluntary severance scheme, both fit and unfit men have left. A side effect of this has been to stop all recruiting since 1965, which has put up the average age of the men. I mention this only to show what the companies are doing, and the nature of the problem they face. It would help greatly if this problem were solved quickly.
Finally, in this part of my speech let me mention briefly the disruptive element. Jack Dash is going, as we know, but two others—and I repeat two others—are being trained to take his place. In the interests of time I shall not quote what the first employer to whom I referred earlier said, but these elements are damaging, and at times create chaos. Employers negotiate with the unions, but what are they to think when these organisations allow self-styled and self-appointed committees to be set up? Perhaps the unions are powerless. If that is so, surely it is an overwhelming argument for strengthening them by comprehensive industrial relations legislation? Surely employers have the right to expect an agreement freely negotiated to be honoured, and we shall watch with interest the action which the T.U.C. takes in the London docks if thee occasions arise. I do not believe that there is any area where action is more necessary.
In many cases also attitudes spring from history and traditions. The view is held by some managers that a high basic wage structure will not give the necessary incentive to the men who by tradition are paid as pieceworkers. They retain the view that by the sweat of piecework that financial rewards will be earned and incentives provided. All appreciate, of course, the advantages of flexibility and


mobilitity of labour, but until they modernise their installations, they cannot get that and until they get it they cannot modernise. Some who have done so are reaping their rewards, and so are the men who work for them, but there is a wide diversity in the docks and wharves. Some are old, some employers lack initiative and there are too many of them although fewer than before decasualisation.
Progress on a wide front is needed to modernise but it is too slow. Like the unions, employers' associations are weak and lack unity. This creates uncertainty and weakens the credibility of any agreements that are made. A further real fear is that some shipowners, through expediency—this is understandable—are not always prepared to enforce agreements. Earnings of workers naturally tend to vary between employers, but the weakness of the two main parties, unions and employers, give ample scope of disruptive operations. What is the employer to do?

Mr. W. S. Hilton: This matter concerns my constituency. The hon. and gallant Member has mentioned disruptive tactics. That was after he spoke of weakness of employers' organisations and unions. Does he mean to imply that employers also employ disruptive practices, and problems flow from that?

Captain Elliot: I shall not go into that, but I can hardly see that employers would deliberately employ disruptive practices.
The employer should strengthen his association. He needs an economically viable labour force prepared to work flexibly. Until he gets it, further modernisation will not lead to greater productivity, but the two must go together. With the continuous and flexible use of an economically viable labour force, more supervision becomes necessary. Some employers provide this now, but lack of supervision seems to be prevalent. With modernisation of machines and methods, the employer is able to offer the best earnings opportunities for his men. This will be the incentive for the future.
Hovering over the whole scene is the spectre of nationalisation. The Government, looking at docks, have decided
to control and promote the important changes required.

This means national ownership. Nationalisation, as in other industries, would lead to higher costs, rigidity, a non-competitive structure and further burdens on the nation. The industry is moving in the right direction. It needs not to change direction but to speed up movement. With progress in modernisation on ship and shore, there should not be a division of control between the two. To get the full advantage of modernisation we need one control from the ship to the sheds—that is, vertical integration with perhaps specialisation by trade. Nationalisation leads to horizontal integration along the jetties. Once the docks have been nationalised, the ships may suffer the same fate. Is that the Government's ultimate intention? If so, the burden on the country will in my opinion be still greater.
May I sum up? What impresses me in the London Docks is the confidence which those working there have in the industry and its future. They know what has to be done. They know where they are going—not all, but many of them. They are moving along the right road, but too slowly. They are delayed by disruptive elements who are no friends of the port workers, but those elements are not as strong as they were.
Both unions and employers need to strengthen their organisations and achieve greater unity. For the unions the days of uncertainty for their members are over and so are the days of piecework and rigid demarcation. The port worker of the future will be mobile, interchangeable and skilled in the use of mechanical aids. The employer will no longer have to deal with constant difficulties caused by piecework. He will concentrate his attention on achieving a smooth flow of cargo from ship to shed and vice versa in the flexible and continuous use of his labour force. He will judge his success not by the output of sweat from his men but by the proper and continuous use of his machinery.
The London docks are moving in the right direction but one thing more is necessary—for the Government to refrain from imposing an enormous bureaucracy on their backs.

10.7 a.m.

Mr. W. S. Hilton: I will not detain the House for more than a few minutes but I have


one advantage over the hon. and gallant Member for Carshalton (Capt. W. Elliot)—London dockers form part of my constituency of Bethnal Green. Throughout his speech he attempted to spotlight a problem which obviously is the concern of all hon. Members. No one wants an important industry of this country to be a bottleneck to industrial progress and a better economic future for everyone, and the docks are in a particularly important situation because it is through them that our exports flow.
But when the hon. and gallant Gentleman suggested that traditions connected with the docks might limit their expansion he was limited by his own thinking on union organisation and union people, and that is why I asked him to give way when he mentioned disruptive elements. I believe that if there are a large number of employers in the docks, some of whom are not at all happy to take part in any discipline, their action can lead to disruption taking place. My experience throughout my life in the trade union movement is that if there are any agitators or so-called agitators who can bring about disruption, they cannot do it on mythical grounds. There must always be some genuine grievance or some genuine basis, and that is usually provided by employers who refuse to face up to their responsibilities.
There are some people in my constituency who still remember being treated like caged animals, with docks foremen coming along to pick out from among them the best performers for the docks circus in the coming week. That kind of thing does not leave a man's mind in a hurry. If we say that they ought to drop that attitude on the promise of mechanisation and a better future, to the hon. Member and myself that seems very reasonable because we have never worked in the docks or suffered that experience, but I am sure that if we had done so we might take a more cautious attitude.
I want the mechanisation of the docks. I do not want men to sweat in the docks any more than I want them to get pit black down the mines of the country. I want them to lead dignified lives. But there are still cargoes in the docks which are stinking, unhealthy and unhygienic, and mechanisation does nothing to remove the disincentive of working on those cargoes.
In almost any argument concerning the unions and management and the economics of any operation flowing from it, I am prepared to say that management is at fault without examining the circumstances too closely, for this reason—and I believe that the hon. and gallant Member agrees with me: management is always the initiator of change. That lies in the hands of management. Management efficiency lies in the hands of management and not in the hands of the workers. The workers can only respond. In the London docks, management has been reluctantly driven to becoming efficient and to giving security. It has not voluntarily offered them to the men. If management had come along voluntarily and said to my dockers "We will do this" we might have had a different attitude to dock mechanisation. The docker's memory shows him that he has to struggle for everything and sometimes he has to struggle for efficiency and mechanisation in his job.
Often, moving towards mechanisation brings about greater fears among dockers for the security of their work. They are not alone in this. Some of the greatest obstacles to the economic progress of this country have been caused by mechanisation threatening the interest of some group. This affects not only the dockers, but the capital side of the industry, and one can then hardly blame my people, who have less in capital resources, for feeling insecure.
Management has a responsibility for taking the initiative, and the reason why Government are looked to to bring a more integrated and more widespread management is that in the docks the rump of small employers have helped to bring about the present situation and only by widespread efficiency can we have hope for the future.
The hon. Member is sincerely concerned about this problem, but I am concerned about the men in any drive towards efficiency. It is the management side on which we have to concentrate if we are to have a better life for dockers and for industry in future.

10.12 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Employment and Productivity (Mr. Harold Walker): The hon. and gallant Member for Carshalton


(Captain W. Elliot) has raised a matter of deep concern and presented it in a sincere manner. The Government share that concern.
In several ways, the hon. and gallant Gentleman correctly diagnosed some of the problems with which we are confronted in the London docks. Labour troubles and inefficiency are not novel problems in Britain's port industry. They are not newcomers to London docks. These are problems which have been with us for a long time, and the search for solutions has bedevilled a succession of Governments and Ministers.
It is misleading, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Hilton), pointed out, to blame it on one side, and when the hon. and gallant Member for Carshalton refers to wider industrial relations problems, I would say to him, as I have said several times to the House and as the Minister has said several times also, that in all these matters the primary responsibility lies with management. It is unfair and misleading to keep attributing the ills of British industrial relations to one side of industry.

Captain W. Elliot: I hope that nothing in my speech implied that I attributed everything to one side only.

Mr. Walker: I am sorry if I did the hon. and gallant Member an injustice. As I said before, I think he correctly diagnosed some of the problems and referred to the weakness of management and of the structure of management organisation.
What I can fairly claim to be new is the determined attempt embarked on by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter) when he was Minister of Labour and appointed a Committee of Inquiry under Lord Devlin in October, 1964. The effort which he made led to some of the most sweeping and progressive reforms that the industry has experienced and set in motion a process of change, the momentum of which has been maintained throughout the period since and is still maintained at present. The Devlin Committee investigated the main causes of disorder which afflicted the industry. Some of these have been eradicated, some have been diminished, and it is a matter for regret that some

others will persist. I understand and share the hon. and gallant Gentleman's anxiety that greater progress should be made towards greater efficiency, and that it should proceed faster. But I recall the words of my right hon. Friend when putting the Devlin stage I proposals before the House, when he said that he believed there would be troubled times ahead before we reached smoother waters.
I do not think that any of us would be so naive as to underrate the obstacles to progress, not the least of which is the burden of the inheritance of the dockers, the history to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman referred, and the fear of the future. Equally, one should not underrate what has already been achieved. No doubt the hon. and gallant Gentleman has, like me, visited the London docks and seen the new cargo handling methods which are being used there—the mechanised handling of meat and of bananas in the Royal Group. There are still obstacles to its acceptance, but pre-packaged timber is being discharged.
These measures are having their impact on the labour force. They are other measures are leading to dramatically increased productivity, a fact confirmed by the rundown in the number of registered dock workers in London docks. The registered dock labour force on 18th October, 1967, was 23,616. By 15th July this year it had fallen to 19,842. Because of the introduction of the new voluntary severance payment scheme, there are already further commitments, which make the estimated registered dock labour force by mid-August about 18,500. In other words, in two years there will have been a 22 per cent. reduction in the labour force, which is at the same time an indication of increased productivity, a reflection of the changes taking place, and an indication of the source of anxiety that inhibits the dockers from a ready acceptance of further changes without assurances and guarantees for the future.
Furthermore, the level of investment in ports generally, a level that London shares, has been greatly increased. With the assistance of Government grants and loans, the current level in ports is about £50 million, contrasted with about £18 million in 1964—a dramatic increase in the rate of investment, much of which has


gone into London docks in the new techniques which the dockers are accepting.
The old casual labour system, long regarded as one of the major evils in the industry and one of the greatest obstacles to progress, ended in 1967. The hon. and gallant Gentleman talked of the need to strengthen employer's organisations within the industry. I am sure that he recognises that this will come about through a reduction in the number of employers, and as a consequent of the implementation of the Devlin stage I proposals there has been a substantial reduction in the number of employers in London docks, with a strengthening and improvement in their organisation as a consequence.
It would be equally false for us to believe or assume that these changes and opposition to them are unique to Britain. Other countries have experienced the same kind of difficulties, perhaps in different degree, as we have endured. In the United States there was a protracted strike on the East Coast waterfront last year because of the introduction of just the same kind of changes as are meeting resistance here. In Australia the same changes have met with resistance. It is true that in some of the Continental ports there has been a more ready acceptance of them, but this is partly because of the different historical background. As a consequence of the effects of the war on them, they were able to start from scratch.
Equally, there is no basis for complacency. We must press ahead. It might be to the benefit of the House and of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, who is, I think, familiar with the background, if I say something about the current stage of the negotiations, because we are at a singularly critical point in these negotiations, which will determine to a large degree the rate of future progress within the industry in London docks.
The current negotiations have taken place against a background of two underlying problems. First is the problem of surplus labour as a consequence of decasualisation. There is also the question of the intensification of the problem of unequal earnings opportunities because of the uneven introduction of new techniques and the fact that, where these are

being introduced, there are greater earnings opportunities than in the berths, docks and wharves where conventional cargo handling still persists.
In seeking implementation of Devlin stage 2, this problem was recognised by the National Modernisation Committee chaired by an officer of my Department. It recognised that earnings would continue to vary between ports and between employees within the port. It was because of this uneven rate of introduction of new techniques and the disparities which have arisen, coupled with the fears arising from redundancy, that the Transport and General Workers Union, in January, 1968, placed a ban on the implementation of certain new techniques until a comprehensive package deal had been negotiated for the whole of the docks.

Mr. Simon Mahon: With my hon. Friend's considerable knowledge of the industry, can he tell us how many hours of work he thinks a dock labourer should do to earn an adequate modern wage?

Mr. Walker: I hope my hon. Friend will wait until I have described the present state of events. I hope that he will equally accept that I could not give a quantified answer to him. It would be wrong for me to do so for reasons that I shall explain.
The fact that the ban has been imposed has not prevented the introduction of certain new agreements. There have been a number of new agreements providing for new methods of working and accepted by the union since the implementation of the ban. Behind the ban was the desire of the union to safeguard both earnings levels and the future security of its members employed in London docks.
On 27th June the employers responded by saying to the union, which organises the majority of dockers in London, that they were not prepared to continue negotiations on stage 2 unless and until the ban was lifted. Since then there have been no formal negotiations between the two sides, although informal discussions continued until, on 10th July, at the request of the official policy-making body of the union in London docks, the No. 1 Docks Group, a meeting was held, under my Department's chairmanship, between the union and the employers interested in the removal of the ban. These included


representatives of the National Association of Port Employers, the London Port Employers, the London Overseas Trade Employers Association, the Port of London Authority, the Wharfingers, and the Container Base Federation, which owns the container base at Orsett, near Tilbury.
As a consequence of that meeting, a further meeting of the No. 1 Docks Group was held last night. A further meeting between the employers and the union has been arranged for today. It is because of this that I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Mr. Simon Mahon) will accept that it would be improper for me to say anything now which might in any way prejudice the negotiations, the outcome of which we all hope will be successful. It is contrary to the accepted tradition of the House to make statements which would be prejudicial to such negotiations.
I am sure that I am expressing the hope of all hon. Members that the meeting taking place today will have a successful outcome that it will be fruitful and will pave the way for the kind of developments in the industry which have been mentioned and which all hon. Members hope to see speedily achieved.
The hon. and gallant Member referred to the Government's proposals for the reorganisation of the ports. This is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, but I should like to emphasise that this reorganisation of the ports is not a doctrinaire method of fulfilling a political ideology but a clear recognition not merely on the part of the Government but of previous Governments and the Rochdale Commission as long ago as 1962 of the need for reorganisation with a central planning authority, and the proposals outlined in the White Paper go towards achieving that end.
The Government's awareness of the growing importance of through transport and vertical integration of businesses is made clear by the references to them in the White Paper itself. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is certainly aware of these points and has it in mind that the legislation should be rated so as to give adequate scope for considering the problems and circum-

stances of individual cases before decisions are made.
Nevertheless, the fragmentation of services and operations within the ports has to be reduced in order to achieve the greatest possible degree of efficiency. It will also be conducive to better industrial relations. The Government's view is that the nationalised authorities should become the principal operators of port facilities and services within their own ports and, by virtue of that, the operators of port labour, and this remains one of the cardinal requirements of the reorganisation.
The hon. and gallant Member referred to disruptive elements. No doubt he will derive satisfaction from my assurance that the unofficial liaison committee has been dissolved in view of the policy, and the degree of success in achieving it, of the Transport and General Workers Union. I should like to take up what he said about Jack Dash. I have had a long involvement myself in trade union activities and in industrial relations at shop floor level. In the whole of my experience I never came across one of these dynamic personalities who, by his sheer personality and little else, could persuade thousands or scores of thousands of men to follow him in a broad line of action dictated by himself and his own ideas.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green said, an individual can be the spark to the gunpowder, but the gunpowder has to be provided by the circumstances, and the circumstances are the historical background of the industry including the attitudes of employers within the industry in other days, to which the hon. and gallant Member referred, I am glad to say. These factors led to the present situation. This is the second time within a week that I have heard the suggestion that an individual, by virtue of his own personality, has been able to induce men to participate in this kind of strike action.
I hope that I have made it clear that the industry is making radical progress and that, although there are obstacles to be overcome, and they are formidable obstacles, they are not intractable, that modernisation is proceeding and that we share the hon. and gallant Gentleman's hope and anxiety that it will proceed at a faster pace. We express the profound hope that today's discussions, which I


hope no words of mine will prejudice, will provide another step towards achieving that end.

Mr. Speaker: I remind the House that I have been appealing for the last 18½ hours for reasonably brief speeches.

Orders of the Day — M56 (WYTHENSHAWE-BOWDON)

10.30 a.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Walter Bromley-Davenport: The subject I wish to raise today is the compulsory purchase order for land required for the M56 motorway between Wythenshawe and Bowdon in my constituency. Great and growing concern is being voiced about the damaging effect of the construction of new trunk roads and motorways upon the lives of people whose homes unhappily lie adjacent to them. There is strong and mounting pressure for the laws governing compensation for these householders, whom the State causes to suffer the injurious effects of noise and fumes, to be humanised, improved and codified.
The House will have noticed a resolution to this effect tabled and supported in my constituency and passed unanimously recently by the annual conference of the Urban District Councils Association. The House will also have noted the mounting pressure and strong representations made by the Greater London Authority on this theme.
It is inevitable on grounds of justice and basic human decency that appropriate action should be taken at an early date to recompense these unhappy people whose lives inevitably have to be disrupted because of the march of progress. In human terms the nuisance value of new motorways should be assessed to last the lifetime of a new property adjacent to it, in other words about 120 years.
Compensation on this basis for the householder affected would run at a very high figure. How much better it would be if the Government were to have the vision to recognise this human factor as a prerequisite to planning major roads and to prevent these injurious side effects to householders by using more sensible methods of construction at the outset. It is with this in mind that I seek to highlight the position of a number of my constituents Living in Hale Barns and

Ringway areas who feel that their views have been ignored by an arrogant bureaucracy and that they have received harsh, incomprehensible and inhuman treatment from the Minister.
In January, 1966, the Cheshire County Council organised a motorway exhibition in Chester and displayed drawings of the Bowdon-Wythenshawe section of the proposed North Cheshire motorway, the N56. Those drawings showed the proposed six-lane motorway as crossing the river Bollin and rising in a cutting so as to cross over the Altrincham-Wilmslow road and Hasty Lane, still in a cutting. It was entirely on the validity of those plans as presented and in the belief that an adjacent motorway contained in a cutting would not prove to be an intolerable nuisance to their environment that certain constituents of mine were duped into buying their houses in close proximity to the now approved route. Moreover, being lulled into a false sense of security after inspecting these plans, my constituents did not raise objections when the motorway proposals were published.
Quite by accident one of them discovered an important, radical and fundamental change in the plans—the elevation of a part of this new motorway, amounting to two-thirds of a mile and bridged over the Altrincham-Wilmslow road, instead of placing it in a cutting under the road as originally planned and publicised. Because of the very damaging effect this revised plan would cause to the quality of their environment, about 100 householders, 90 per cent. of whom live in Hale Barns and the remainder in Ringway, signed a petition of protest. A public inquiry took place last October, at which there were a number of objectors, all legally represented.
My constituents contended that: (1) their health and well-being are at stake because of the noise which will be broadcast from an adjacent motorway elevated above the existing natural terrain; (2) because of the steep gradient of 1 in 30, heavy vehicles travelling northwards would have to change gear and there would be an excessive emission of smoke and fumes; (3) the motorway on an embankment would be visually objectionable to them.
Each of these several points was conceded by the inspector at the inquiry


after careful investigation of these problems on the ground. Furthermore, because of these factors the inspector was at pains to point out that the selling prices of the properties of my constituents which are affected, and which are of high rateable value, are likely to fall, and that no compensation from public funds would be payable on that account.
The criticisms levelled at the Minister by my constituents are as follows: (1) without personal investigation he has ignored the report and the recommendations of his inspector, and the costly exercise of holding an inquiry, both for the State and the several objectors was completely pointless; (2) had he made personal investigations he would have appreciated that this particular section of motorway was distinctly urban rather than rural, and due account for this ought to have been made in the estimates; (3) he has arbitrarily and callously disregarded the human aspects of the health and well-being of my constituents in an urbanised area, which his inspector was at pains to point out are at risk.
The solution to this problem is to place this section of motorway in a cutting as originally planned and publicised, rather than on an embankment. This was the recommendation of the inspector who asked the Minister to investigate its feasibility having regard to the human suffering which would otherwise occur. The Minister has decided that simply because of £100,000 additional cost this recommendation was not feasible. In such an urbanised and expanding area this additional amount is infinitesimal compared with the actual suffering which would be incurred by upwards of 100 existing householders and the consequential decline in their property values, which would probably amount to at least that figure.
It would only cause a 1·5 per cent. overall increase in the cost of the motorway. In this context it seems utterly ludicrous that the City of Manchester which, very rightly, has the 6⅓ miles of motorway within its boundaries contained in a cutting, intends to spend £160,000 of public money to landscape the sides of the cuttings with trees—simply to provide an attractive visual amenity on this important approach road to the city.
The whole crux of my representation is that this vital two-thirds of a mile of the section of the new motorway passes through an expanded urbanised area. The following recommendation of the Buchanan Report, therefore, should apply to it:
Motorways should in urban areas be constructed in cuttings rather than on embankments.
In deference to the grievance suffered by my constituents I also draw the Minister's attention to this quotation from Traffic in New Towns:
In London (and no doubt in other large towns as well) road traffic is at the present time the predominant source of annoyance and no other single noise is of comparable importance.
Both these factors are now being very sensibly taken into account. The M56 is to pass in a cutting through Manchester but not, unhappily, as yet, through Ringway and Hale Barns. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] The planning authority for Leyland, on consideration of an application for planning permission for a site adjacent to the M6, made it entirely conditional upon a high screening embankment being provided by the developers in order to deaden the sound of motorway traffic. [Interruption.]
I am coming to an end—hon. Members will be glad to hear. I seek only to obtain similar humane justice and consideration for my constituents who, unless the Minister's decision is reversed, are likely to suffer not only hardship through decline in their property values —[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—but, what is even worse, grave danger to their health and well-being as long as they remain in their existing homes. Because of my long Parliamentary experience—[Interruption.]—I sympathise with the Minister, because I appreciate his difficulties. The problems and pressures which confront him are so numerous and complex that he is forced to delegate authority, and because he is unable to investigate personally many matters of detail he has to rely on the judgment of others.
Nevertheless, he is the person responsible, and because the lives of so many of my constituents are affected—[Interruption.]—I make a very special plea—

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is no need for this debate to become heated.

Sir W. Bromley-Davenport: I appreciate your help, Mr. Speaker. By the clock I have been going on for only 12½ minutes, whereas other terrible bores on both sides of the House have gone on for more than 25 or 30 minutes. At least let me finish. [HON. MEMBERS: "Come on Walter."] The point that I am making will apply to the constituents of hon. Members opposite one day, and they will be getting up and blabbing—I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker, but that was not my fault. As I was saying, the Minister is the person responsible, and because the lives of so many of my constituents are affected I make a very special plea to him to reconsider the report of his inspector and to make a personal re-investigation of this whole matter.
This need not delay building progress on the motorway, because it may be practicable to commence work with the remaining six miles of motorway without delay. I should like the Minister to visit the area and talk to the people affected on this point. At the same time, he might pay a visit to my home, where I shall be pleased to entertain him. I formally extend a cordial invitation to him to do so, and I assure him that I shall be happy to afford him every assistance throughout his visit.

10.45 a.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Bob Brown): I am sure that the House is grateful to the hon. and gallant Member for Knutsford (Sir W. Bromley-Davenport) for his powerful and eloquent plea on behalf of his constituents. I want to try to abide by the pleas that you have made for short speeches, Mr. Speaker, although the hon. and gallant Member has given me a fair amount to cover. The road works on this M56 scheme were properly authorised by a Scheme under Section 11 of the Highways Act, 1959 and a Side Roads Order under Section 13. The compulsory purchase order was published in July, 1968. The public inquiry into the order was held in Hale, Cheshire, on 22nd and 23rd October, 1968.
The main ground of objection at the inquiry was not directed against either the route of the proposed motorway or the acquisition of land included in the draft order, but against the provision of the Side Roads Order for the motorway to

cross over Wilmslow Road on an embankment. The objectors pressed for the construction proposals to be amended by taking the motorway under Wilmslow Road in a cutting. The Inspector recommended that the Order be made. He also recommended that the Ministry should investigate the feasibility of constructing in cutting the section of motorway in the Wilmslow Road vicinity. The Minister accepted both recommendations.
The feasibility of constructing in a cutting near Wilmslow Road had previously been fully considered. Nevertheless, it was again carefully examined in the light of the inspector's report. But the Minister decided, in his wisdom, against altering the design. His reason was a valid one. He would not have been justified, in the overall public interest, in spending at least a further £100,000 from public funds to provide relief from noise to the comparatively small number of dwellings which the inspector considered would be materially affected if the motorway were built on an embankment as planned.
The hon. and gallant Member has made great play about the small percentage of overall cost that would be involved—about 1·5 per cent. This comes ill from him, who talks so often about the need for a reduction in public expenditure by this Government.
Following this, a complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner was made, and he found no element of maladministration in the Department's actions. The hon. and gallant Member and his constituent, the complainant, tried to secure from the Minister and the director of the Ministry's North Western road construction unit an assurance that while the Parliamentary Commissioner was making his investigation the Minister would take no action prejudicial to the interests of the complainant. It was pointed out that the Parliamentary Commissioner Act, 1967, in Section 7(4), includes the following specific provision:
The conduct of an investigation under this Act shall not affect … any power or duty of (the Department or Authority concerned) to take further action with respect to any matter subject to the investigation.
An assurance was also given that the Ministry would act in a responsible manner.
On being pressed by the hon. and gallant Member to elucidate the phrase


"act in a responsible manner", I reminded him that the Minister sometimes has to take decisions in the public interest which run counter to individual private interests; that the Minister was well aware of the issues involved in the case and would take no steps without weighing up very carefully the legal position and the interests of all concerned. In fact, no irreversible action was taken. In order that no more than the minimum time should be lost in the event of the Parliamentary Commissioner exonerating the Department, tenders were invited, but no contract was placed until after the receipt of his report.
As a matter of interest, the hon. and gallant Member will be aware that yesterday we announced the acceptance of a tender—a £6,727,920 tender—by Holland and Hannan and Cubitts (Civil Engineering) Limited.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman mentioned compensation. Clearly, his constituents will be treated exactly the same as anyone else affected by a line of a motorway, and I made the point earlier—at about 6.30 this morning—that the Minister, recognising all the difficulties and all the hardships involved with urban motorways particularly, has now appointed an urban motorways committee. whose terms of reference are:
(1) to examine present policies used in fitting major roads into urban areas;
(2) to consider what changes would enable urban roads to be related better to their surroundings, physically, visibly and socially;
(3) to examine the consequences of such changes particularly from the point of view of

(a) limitations on resources, both public and private;
(b) changes in statutory powers and administrative procedures;
(c) any issues of public policy that the changes would raise;


(4) to recommend what changes, if any, should be made.
It is, therefore, fair to say that my right hon. Friend is fully seized of all the difficulties and all the problems facing people who unfortunately are affected by a line of a motorway.
I conclude by thanking the hon. and gallant Gentleman for his generous invitation to visit him and his constituency.

Mr. Ernest G. Perry: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Sir David Renton: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot take a point of order during this Question.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

Committee this day.

Orders of the Day — DENOMINATIONAL EDUCATION (WIRRAL)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ernest G. Perry.]

10.52 a.m.

Mr. Edwin Brooks: In January 1969 the education committee of the Birkenhead County Borough, in which half of my electorate reside, sent a form to the parents of children due to begin their secondary education this coming September. As an eligible parent I, too, received this form. The form gave details of the classification examinations which were shortly to be held, and which it was expected would prove to be the last 11 + selection before the borough goes comprehensive in the early 'seventies. The form, as had no doubt been customary for many years, assured the parents that the object of the examination was to enable the education committee to determine the type of education from which the child would best be able to profit.
However, the form went on to draw a distinction between children who had been attending Roman Catholic primary schools—comprising, I understand of some 25 per cent. of the children in the borough—and the non-Catholic children. In the case of the former, it was said that
…pupils who attend Roman Catholic Primary Schools will normally be expected to attend Roman Catholic Secondary Schools. In the long run, maintained County Secondary Comprehensive Schools may only have sufficient accommodation for pupils from County and C.E. Primary Schools.


Catholic parents were told that
…it is of the utmost importance that
they
should indicate on the attached Application Form their first, second and third choice of Roman Catholic Secondary Schools.
But here arose a difficulty whose roots go deep into the past and which has sparked off a major local controversy. It is a difficulty compounded of religious difference, social class, geographical concentration and understandable ambitions of a more mobile and more critical population. I shall restrict myself entirely to the problems of the Roman Catholic boys' schools, but even this self-denying ordinance will tax my powers of disentangling a most complex situation which has locally erupted into fierce acrimony.
Put crudely, there are not enough Roman Catholic grammar schools available to provide academic education for eligible Roman Catholic boys, and this situation has prevailed for a very long time. Indeed, there is but one such school in the whole of Wirral, the Christian Brothers' St. Anselm's College situated in Birkenhead. Until last year, its intake was divided roughly equally between the three authorities of Cheshire, Wallasey and Birkenhead, although the catchment area extends as far south as Chester.
For some six years, I was myself a local authority representative on the school's board of governors, and I can recall during the early 'sixties how anxiously we considered the future provision of adequate Catholic education in a peninsular where denominational provision was being increasingly outdistanced by the influx of Liverpool families into Ellesmere Port. Birkenhead has for many years taken up thirty or more so-called "free" places at St. Anselm's, and in 1968—for reasons which may have been linked to Wallasey's decision that year to cease taking up such places—the figure rose as high as 40.
Even this relatively high figure must be recognised as a low percentage of the Roman Catholic children proceeding to secondary education in the borough, and this can be seen when we consider the comparative provision for non-Catholic boys. The number of non-Catholic boys given places at academic schools in the borough—including those for whom

"free" places are provided at the direct grant Birkenhead School—is nearly 250.
On the assumption that the ability range among Catholic children is similar to that among non-Catholic—and this is surely a reasonable assumption—we should therefore anticipate roughly 80–85 Catholic children being eligible for entry into grammar schools. In fact, as I have just indicated, the average entry into St. Anselm's from Birkenhead has been little more than a third of this during recent years, and even in 1968 it was at best one half of those eligible for academic schooling. However, until, the mid-sixties it seems to have been quite general to permit eligible Catholic boys to proceed to non-Catholic grammar schools. In 1965, 27 boys were so admitted, and in the two following years the figures were 12 and 19. Adding these figures to the St. Anselm's entry, we find 60 Catholic boys going to grammar schools in 1965, 46 in 1966 and 52 in 1967.
However, in 1968 a change of policy seems to have taken place, for in that year, according to figures supplied to me on 17th July by my right hon. Friend, not a single Catholic boy proceeded to a non-Catholic grammar school. Instead, we find a substantial increase in the number of Catholic boys being admitted to the academic—technical stream at St. Hugh's —a Catholic school, and a further significant entry proceeding to a similar academic-technical stream which was newly being commenced at another Catholic boys' school, the Blessed Edward Campion. To put it precisely, in 1968, 40 boys went to St. Anselm's, and a further 31 and 16 respectively went to the academic technical streams at St. Hugh's and Blessed Edward Campion. This made a grand total of 87 Catholic boys going either to a full grammar school or a modern school with academic-technical streams. However, the policy of sending all Catholic primary boys to Catholic secondary schools, irrespectively of the expressed wishes of their parents, raises some very serious implications which extend not merely to Birkenhead but to the denominational school system as a whole.
Some of these questions I raised with my hon. Friend in correspondence in early 1968, and I think that in the light of subsequent events I should quote her


reply to me at some length. She thanked me for my letter of 24th January seeking
…my views on the recent decision taken by Birkenhead L.E.A. with the agreement of Shrewsbury Schools Commission, to the effect that Roman Catholic children are to be excluded from County Secondary Schools.
I presume from your letter that Canon Rigby has explained to you that the arrangement was thought necessary because of possible educational objections to transfer in any short interim period, when a selective 11–18 Roman Catholic system may operate alongside a 12–18 County Comprehensive system, and because thereafter accommodation at County Schools will not permit any great latitude for the admission of Roman Catholic pupils.
My right hon. Friend then went on, however, to make some comments which clearly have great relevance to the very future of the denominational system.
Nevertheless",
she said,
in general a parent who wishes his child to enter a county school is not under any obligation to declare his religious affiliation, and in allocating children to county schools, I would expect an authority to have regard to logistical factors of pressures on accommodation at particular schools, but not the religious inclination of the parents.
My right hon. Friend then went on to suggest that the local authority's decision would not operate as rigidly as had been feared, and that the authority would be sympathetic to a Roman Catholic parent who insisted on a place at a county school for his child.
However, this current year the argument has flared afresh, and this time there seems to be some evidence that the assurances of flexibility have not been proved in the event. As my right hon. Friend will know, I have been deluged with letters from constituents who assure me, and describe in detail, how their expressed wishes for non-Catholic grammar schools have been apparently overridden, and their children allocated instead to the academic-technical streams at St. Hugh's and Blessed Edward Campion. Married to this dissatisfaction is the authority's decision to take up no more than 30 places at St. Anselm's College this September.
According to the answer given to me by my right hon. Friend on 17th July, the present anticipated intake of Catholic boys into St. Hugh's academic-technical

stream in September will be 48, and for Blessed Edward Campion it will be 21. This makes a grand total of 101 boys going to Catholic secondary schools, with a further two, or maybe three, having been allocated this year to non-Catholic grammar schools. The parents of boys who feel, rightly or wrongly, that their choice of secondary school has been flouted are in effect saying that they want their child to be allocated on the basis of academic criteria and not on the basis of a presumed but far from universally held religious bias.
My right hon. Friend has been engaged in more recent correspondence with me, and a week ago she wrote to me at some length on what is clearly a complex and tangled dispute involving the wishes and interests of at least three conflicting groups: the local education authority, the Diocesan Commission and the parents. In her reply she made clear, as I fully accept, that the local authority has discretion about the number of places it takes up at direct grant schools, and that she could not therefore interfere in the decision to take up no more than 30 places at St. Anselm's this year. As this is a matter exclusively for the local authority, I shall not pursue it further.
My right hon. Friend then turned to the allegations which I had forwarded to her of discrimination against Catholic pupils on the basis of the statistics I quoted earlier.
I do not think,
she said,
that there is really evidence that the authority discriminate against Catholics by their allocation procedures, and I understand that the Diocesan Commissions have made no complaint on that score.
If I may interpolate at that stage, I do not think that my right hon. Friend was fully seized of the argument I was transmitting to her from the parents. Their allegation, in effect, is that the local education authority and the Shrewsbury Diocesan Commission have come to an agreement about allocation procedures which infringes their right as parents to choose schools freely for their children, and that the Commission has quite mistakenly assumed an automatic preference for a Catholics secondary school whatever the relative merits—or at least alleged merits—of county schools in the neighbourhood. In these circumstances,


the parents have not been mollified to hear my right hon. Friend's argument that the Diocesan Commission has made no protest about recent events.
She went on in her letter to state that the local authority was not completely inflexible, and three Catholic boys out of eight whose parents had appealed against the original allocations have apparently been allowed to proceed to non-Catholic selective schools. However, my right hon. Friend stressed that
there were admittedly special considerations for these cases,
and I think she would accept there is an inference that without such special considerations a parent's chance of having the allocation altered would be very slender.
In my original letter to my right hon. Friend of 1 st July I had queried the legal position under the 1944 Education Act—particularly the well-known Section 76 which emphasises the importance to be given to parental choice. Understandably, my right hon. Friend could not anticipate a hypothetical legal action brought by the parents, but, from what I hear in my constituency, this may be less hypothetical in the very near future. It is clear that we could be on the eve of a most important test case which could have repercussions across the whole of denominational education in Great Britain.
My right hon. Friend is, I am sure, aware of the importance of this matter, and indeed in her letter made clear that she saw the point of the complaints made to me. She said that she was prepared to take up with the local authority individual appeals for parents who remain dissatisfied and wish to pursue the matter. In normal circumstances, I would be most grateful to my right hon. Friend for such an assurance, but I am not sure that it fully meets the problem. Indeed, by appearing to respond only to those parents who have the ability and stamina to mount a serious protest it might even smack of selective favouritism.
Surely, what is needed is some clarification of an obscure position; for if indeed, as I was assured last year, the Catholic parents do not even have to indicate their religious affiliations, then why on earth do they apparently have to plead exceptional circumstances in order to see that their children go to the school

of their choice, Catholic or non-Catholic, as the case may be?
Incidentally, does it not equally follow that if the Catholic parent is under no obligation to send his child to a Catholic secondary school—and this would be my layman's reading of the 1944 Act—then the non-Catholic parent is also free to shop around, as it were, sending his child to St. Anselm's, for example, on a local authority free place? This is only one of many disturbing hints of the repercussions which could follow an assault on the conventions which have guided the development of denominational education in the post-war years.
The rules of order in this debate preclude me discussing the Birkenhead case against the backcloth of the legislation which may appear in the forthcoming Parliamentary Session, bat I am sure my right hon. Friend will accept that the time is rapidly approaching when decisions about the future of denominational secondary schooling must be taken. Today, when Catholic communities are, like the rest of us, increasingly mobile and becoming scattered across the land, the problems of comprehensive reorganisation for Catholic secondary schools which deal with large catchment areas are becoming more urgent and difficult. However, my purpose is not to elaborate such themes today, much as I am tempted to ask how we can indefinitely reconcile a policy of abolishing educational apartheid with a separate denominational secondary system. I am simply trying to ventilate a constituency problem which is seemingly intractable and, to me at any rate, rather worrying.
I have the very greatest personal respect for the work being done in all three of the boys' schools that I have been discussing—I have in my time been a governor of all three—and it saddens me to find them caught up in the fury of an argument which could so easily damage their reputations and objectives.
Perhaps the situation has become so vexed and confused that my right hon. Friend will consider setting up a departmental inquiry into the whole issue, and see whether a more thorough probe than is possible in such a debate as this might clarify and ease the situation. I understand that the Educational Right Committee which has been set up in Birkenhead to pursue the matter is seeking a public inquiry of some sort, and, while


I am always fearful of suggesting anything which might postpone the taking of difficult but inevitable decisions, I am increasingly inclined to see some merit in this broad suggestion.
This is a traditionally delicate area of public policy, and an objective and national examination of the many interlocked problems would seem a useful precaution against actions and statements which could so easily spark off traditional suspicions and animosities. In all of this, we should remember the children over whose future the argument rages, and I very much hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to respond to these summary remarks of mine in a way which will help resolve the dispute.

11.8 a.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Miss Alice Bacon): I am not sure whether I have to ask the leave of the House in making what is my third speech this morning.
Listening to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Edwin Brooks), I became convinced that the real problem we are discussing is not of denominational education in the area as a whole, but really selection for secondary education in one part of the Wirral—Birkenhead. I think the whole problem stems from selection for secondary education. I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that the lasting solution to this problem lies in a complete end to selection and the development of comprehensive education in both Roman Catholic and county schools. This is the real problem and the ultimate solution.
It is instructive to see how a neighbouring authority, Wallasey, is now providing appropriate courses for Roman Catholic children of all abilities in Roman Catholic schools. Earlier arrangements for Roman Catholic boys were similar to those made in Birkenhead. Each year about 20 pupils went to St. Anselm's and about 50 to county grammar schools. In 1968 selection was ended, and Roman Catholic boys are now staying in their middle schools until the age of 13. They will then go to a third-tier boys' comprehensive school, which is to open in 1970, and transfer two years later to new purpose-built premises.
A reorganisation scheme for Roman Catholic schools in Birkenhead has

recently been submitted to my Department, and I am hopeful, therefore, that in Birkenhead also all Roman Catholic children will have the opportunity to follow suitable courses in Roman Catholic schools. The scheme provides that, initially, Roman Catholic boys will go to either a mixed comprehensive school or to a boys' comprehensive school, St. Hugh's, and then to the sixth form at St. Anselm's, which is a direct grant school.
The intention is that in 1972 the authority will stop taking up so-called free places at all direct-grant schools. I should explain here that so-called free places in direct grant schools are not free to the local authority. The local authority has to pay for them, sometimes a very high fee, in addition to the direct grant from my Department. I understand that at Birkenhead the so-called free places to St. Anselm's have in the past been offered only to Roman Catholic boys.
In 1972, when the change is made, St. Hugh's and St. Anselm's will link as comprehensive schools and pupils will then transfer from St. Hugh's to St. Anselm's at 14-plus without selection. I hope to be able to give my decision on this scheme in about a month or so, and I feel that, when the scheme is in operation, the difficulties will be ironed out.
As I say, this may provide the solution in the reasonably near future, but I know that my hon. Friend is concerned with the immediate problem arising from selection. Before turning to the particular points which he raised, I have two general observations to make.
First, we should not exaggerate the scale of the problem. The vast majority of Roman Catholic parents in Birkenhead have not objected to the authority's policy or decisions, but a few of my hon. Friends constituents have expressed disquiet. But this would not be a surprising number in any area where selection persists.
Secondly, I think it unfortunate that the problem has been presented as one of religious discrimination, with all the emotional undertones which that involves. I would be no party to religious discrimination in education or any other field, and I am sure that the Birkenhead authority does not intend to discriminate against Roman Catholics. But there will be discrimination, though not religious


discrimination, as long as selection persists. This we have to accept. That is why we want to go ahead as soon as possible with the ending of selection.

Mr. Simon Mahon: It would be helpful if my right hon. Friend would confirm that over the whole of the country what she has just said about Roman Catholic parents and children is entirely accepted by the Catholic community, and the relationship between ourselves, the Government and the schools generally is almost perfect.

Miss Bacon: I thank my hon. Friend for that and agree with what he says.
In making those two points, I do not want it to be thought that I discount the genuine and strong feelings of the Birkenhead parents concerned.
Let us now examine the facts. The number of Roman Catholic boys allocated to secondary academic schools or streams has increased in recent years. There were 61 in 1966, 60 in 1967, 87 in 1968 and there will be 99 in 1969. In the last two years, Roman Catholic boys formed 25 per cent. of the total number of boys taking the selection tests, and they obtained 25 per cent. of the academic places. The figures do not suggest unfair treatment.
I know that those who complain are more concerned with the distribution of academic places for Roman Catholic boys between various schools rather than the total number. In particular, some think that the authority should have taken more free places at St. Anselm's direct grant school. Last year, it was offered and accepted 40 places, but for 1969 admissions it took only 30 out of 40 places offered. I understand that the 1968 number was exceptionally high and that in earlier years 33 places had been taken. As my hon. Friend knows, authorities have discretionary power to take places, for which they have to pay, at direct grant schools, but I would not intervene to compel them to do so.
The Roman Catholic parents' most serious complaint is that, since 1968, their children have been excluded from the county grammar schools and sent instead to academic streams in Roman Catholic schools. Here, I should say that, although these are the academic streams in secondary modern schools, this is preparing the way for the reorganisation

plan which is at present at my Department, when the whole set-up will change.
It is true that the number of Roman Catholic boys admitted to county grammar schools was 27 in 1965, 12 in 1966, 19 in 1967, none in 1968, and, to date, five for 1969, but in 1965 the academic stream at St. Hugh's contained 11 boys and, in the subsequent three years, 15,8 and 31. Perhaps 48 will be admitted in 1969. Moreover, another academic stream was started at Blessed Edward Campion School in 1968 for 16 boys, and the numbers are expected to increase to 21 this year. In general, I find it encouraging that many secondary schools are now developing a wider range of courses, and it may be that the Birkenhead Authority particularly wished to strengthen this development in schools which are to become comprehensive in the near future.
There has been an allegation that the number of passes at these schools in examinations has not been as high as those at grammar schools, but. I should make clear that there can be no comparison because those taking external examinations at the present time at the top of these schools went in when children had already been creamed off to other schools. No proper comparison can be made until 1973 when those who recently entered the schools reach the top of the schools.
Nevertheless, I agree that, if Roman Catholic parents want their children to go to the county grammar schools in preference to academic streams in Roman Catholic schools, they must not be excluded simply because of their religion.
I have already written twice to my hon. Friend about this, and I welcome the present opportunity to dispel what seemed to be misunderstandings about my letters. I hope that, when he has heard what I have to say, my hon. Friend will be able to reassure his constituents. I believe that there is some concern because I said that it was not unreasonable for an authority to adopt a general principle that Roman Catholic schools were for Roman Catholic pupils and non-Roman Catholic schools for non-Roman Catholic pupils. But I made that remark in the context of the plans which local authorities and Roman Catholics have to make about future building programmes and so on. We could not possibly duplicate


all the places in the two types of school. As I said, this general principle is a working basis for all authorities and denominational bodies as well, for how else could they make realistic allocations of expenditure between county and voluntary schools or plan sensible schemes of reorganisation?
I would agree that a better description of this principle could perhaps be found than that given in that section of the Authority's circular letter dealing with the allocation of Roman Catholics to secondary education; but that does not mean that the general Principle is unreasonable.
Whilst the general principle may not be unreasonable, its rigid application may lead to wrong results in particular cases. The Education Act lays on a local education authority the duty to pay due regard to the parent's wishes about the education of his children.
It does not follow, however, that the wishes can always be met—this is so for non-Catholics as well as for Roman Catholics—for the authority must also ensure that these are compatible with the provision of efficient instruction and the

avoidance of unreasonable public expenditure.
So far as the cases in Birkenhead are concerned, I would expect the Authority, in allocating children to county grammar schools, to take account of parental choice of schools, performance in the selection tests and the logistical factors of pressure on accommodation at various schools, but not solely on the religious inclinations of the parents.
I could not agree with what my hon. Friend requested, because I do not think that this is a matter which could be appropriately dealt with by holding a public inquiry, but in my recent letter I offered to take up with the authority individual appeals from parents who wish to pursue the matter; and I will do this if I can have the relevant details.
I am sure that this will provide the quickest and most practical way of dealing with the complaints. But I want to emphasise that I believe that this is a temporary matter and I believe that the solution is the adoption of the Roman Catholic secondary reorganisation plan

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes past Eleven o'clock a.m.